Modern Wisdom

Mary Harrington is a contributing editor at UnHerd and an author. Women have been subject to a lot of changes over the past 200 years. Liberated first from the land, then from the house, then from the womb, and finally even from their own nature. But has it actually helped? Has modern feminism been for the best or has it made women's lives more confusing than ever? Expect to learn why feminism mig...

I hit 700k Subscribers on YouTube!! To celebrate, I asked for questions from YouTube, Twitter, Locals and Instagram, so here's another 90 minutes of me trying to answer as many as possible. As always there's some great questions in here about whether Ray Dalio is coming on the podcast, how to overcome negative self talk and whether I'll be doing a live tour soon. Expect to learn how I deal with ne...

Dr Richard Wrangham is an anthropologist and primatologist, a Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University and an author whose research focuses on ape behaviour, human evolution, violence, and cooking. Humans have the capacity for incredible benevolence and kindness, but also are able to be execute other members of our species with a uniquely effective ruthlessness. Why would evoluti...

Alex DatePsych is a Neuroscience and Behavioural Science researcher whose work focuses on attractiveness and dating. We are in a new age of sexlessness. It could be that right now, the human race is having less sex than ever before. Given the rise of dating apps, the sexual revolution and hormonal birth control, how is this happening? Expect to learn what the science says about whether girls find...

Richard Shotton is a behavioural scientist, Founder of Astroten and an author. This might not be news to you, but the human brain isn't designed to be rational. There are cheat codes to get the brain to believe strange things, do strange things and change in ways you might not anticipate. Richard has one of the best insights into this world of mental models, psychology, consumer behaviour, princip...

Critical Drinker is a movie critic, an analyst of modern entertainment media and a YouTuber. Cinema is no longer just about entertainment, it's now a platform for social and cultural ideologies to be pushed through. If you don't like what Hollywood's execs tell you to like? Too bad, that's your prejudice showing, you bigot. Expect to learn why there are no more positive heroic role models in movie...

Mark Manson is a best selling author, blogger and a movie star.  You're not supposed to just get older, you're supposed to mature as well. You're supposed to leave the juvenile patterns and beliefs and behaviours behind as you shed your past self like a wise awakened crab. So why do so many people get stuck in old habits, and how can they get out of them? Expect to learn what most people don't und...

It's Modern Wisdom's 5th birthday!! 5 years ago on February 12th 2018 I launched this podcast with a conversation in my old company's office in the North East of England. Over the last 589 episodes, 1000+ hours and nearly 2000 days of working away on this project I've learned a lot, and today I'm going through some of the most important lessons and insights I've picked up. Expect to learn the impo...

Dr David Ley is a clinical psychologist and a board member of the Sexual Health Alliance whose research focuses on issues related to sexuality, pornography and mental health. Your partner being intimate with another guy should evolutionarily be one of the biggest fears of a man's life. Actually encouraging this behaviour seems almost unthinkable, and yet cucking is becoming a much more common purs...

Rory Sutherland is one of the world's leading consumer behaviour experts, the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Advertising and an author. Humans are an odd animal. Our behaviour sometimes makes very little sense, but when we exchange our money for products it can make even less sense. Thankfully Rory has spent decades studying the most fascinating parts of consumer psychology and today gives us some insigh...

Dr Khandis Blake is an Evolutionary Social Psychologist at the University of Melbourne whose research focuses on status seeking, the menstrual cycle & sexual politics. It is no surprise that women try to enhance their beauty, put on makeup, wear high heels and sometimes take off some layers for photos. But what predicts beautification? Is it all a product of the patriarchy or is it something else?...

Adam Mastroianni is a postdoctoral research scholar at Columbia Business School and a writer whose research focuses on how people perceive and misperceive their social worlds. Does being smart make you happy? Does being dumb make you miserable? Why did the guy who created eugenics also get published in Nature for a revolutionary way to cut a cake? Adam is one of my favourite writers so today I get...

Dr Gloria Mark is the Chancellor's professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California and an author whose research focuses on human-computer interaction. Not being able to focus and suffering with distracted attention is one of the most common complaints amongst people in the modern world. The ability to stay focussed on a single task for a long period of time is hugely ben...

Stephen J Shaw is a data scientist and filmmaker. Over the last 7 years, Stephen has visited 24 countries and analysed millions of piece of data to work out what is happening with global birthrates and predict the earth's future population. The answer is shocking and literally every person needs to be aware of it. Expect to learn how 70% of countries on earth are below the population tipping point...

Zack Telander is a weightlifter, coach & YouTuber. TikTok may be a colossal waste of time, but at least most people consider it to be harmless. A recently blog post made me think differently and today we look at the world's first digital weapon of mass-destruction through pleasure rather than pain. Expect to learn why Digital Dementia is a real phenomenon, how young girls are developing tourettes-...

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist, planetary scientist, author and science communicator. The universe is filled with mystery. Science has answered a lot and yet there's still so many fundamental questions which we seem no closer to understanding. What is consciousness? Are we alone in the universe? And why do people argue so much on the internet? Expect to learn what would happen if the moo...

Dr Tania Reynolds is an Assistant Professor in Psychology at the University of New Mexico whose research focuses on women's intrasexual competition, biases in moral evaluations and social and sexual selection. Ancestrally, men needed to go to war and hunt. Given this, it would be rather useful to be friends with the spear-wielding bloke next to you so that you know he's got your back. Women's use...

Peter Diamandis is an engineer, physician, founder of the X Prize Foundation and cofounder of Singularity University. If you got rid of Elon Musk's money, or Steve Jobs' factories, they would likely still end up in a successful place because of their mindset. Peter has incubated some of the fastest growing and most innovative CEOs, businesses and performers and developed a number of rules around h...

Robert Waldinger is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, Zen priest and Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest-running study of adult life ever conducted. What makes for a good life? That was one of the main questions I asked myself when I began this podcast. A far easier solution would have been to speak to Dr Waldinger as his team has been researching thousands of the same ind...

David Goggins is a retired United States Navy SEAL, ultramarathon runner, triathlete, public speaker and an author.  The ability to overcome challenges in life is one we will all need sooner or later. Make no mistake, discomfort is coming for you whether you're ready or not. Goggins happens to be one of the best individuals on earth at dealing with hard things and after a long time without any pod...

Dr John Barry is a Chartered Psychologist and Professional Researcher, Co-Founder of The Centre for Male Psychology and a leading expert in men’s mental health. Men and women both need help with their mental wellbeing, now more than ever. Yet there seems to be a particular blindness when it comes to men's psychology and how to treat it, plus how to effectively communicate with men about their issu...

Michael Malice is an author, political commentator & podcaster. The 1900s saw some of the worst atrocities in human history. Evil was abound and the bad guys were on top a lot, with the Soviet Union being one of the most brutal examples. Given this, what reason do we have for any hope in the modern world? Expect to learn just how brutal the Soviet jails and gulags were, the torture methods used to...

I hit 600k Subscribers on YouTube!! To celebrate, I asked for questions from YouTube, Twitter, Locals and Instagram, so here's another 90 minutes of me trying to answer as many as possible. As always there's some great questions in here about whether Lex Fridman is coming on the podcast, who the most overrated thinker is and my plans for 2023. Expect to learn what my thoughts are on masculinity be...

Dr Victor Kumar is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Boston University, part of the Mind & Morality Lab's Moral Psychology Research Group and an author. Morality might seem like something that exists independently of humans. Things are either good or bad, the current evolutionary state humans in in should not impact this judgement. Yet it seems that culture and evolution heavily influenced e...

Jonny & Yusef from Propane Fitness join me for a new year's Life Hacks episode. Sit back & enjoy as we run through our favourite tools, apps, websites, strategies & resources for a productive and efficient life. Expect to learn the best sleep supplements we've found, how to get served faster at every restaurant, how to fix tennis elbow, why you need multiple gym memberships, a fix for caffeine dep...