Modern Wisdom

James Bloodworth is a journalist, podcaster and an author. The modern dating market is a mess. From polyamory to OnlyFans, Tinder to Trad Wives. No one really knows the best approach for navigating these waters, and the lessons from our parents no longer apply. James has dedicated an entire podcast series to the most interesting parts of the dating economy and today we're going through them. Expec...

Mark Williams-Thomas is an investigative journalist, an author and former police detective. True crime documentaries are everywhere, and you've probably seen Mark in many of them. He was the man responsible for investigating and exposing Jimmy Savile which then lead to an avalanche of other abusers being arrested. Today we get an insight into what it's like to be a real life Sherlock Holmes. Expec...

Jade Bowler is a YouTuber and an author. It's weird that we spend the first 18 years of our lives desperately trying to study and revise for exams, but no one ever actually teaches us how to study or revise. Thankfully Jade is kind of a professional nerd and StudyTuber, and today she breaks down exactly what science says are the best ways to own an exam. Expect to learn the fundamental principles...

Dr. Dan Engle is an MD, the Founder and Medical Director of Kuya Institute for Transformational Medicine and an author. For the last 50 years, MDMA has been illegal whilst psychological trauma and depression has mostly been treated by trying to negate their symptoms through medication. After decades of research and lobbying, we are finally on the verge of being able to treat the root causes of psy...

Dr Clay Routledge is a Professor of Management at North Dakota State University and an author. How to find meaning in life is a question that's been grappled with for thousands of years. As an Existential Psychologist, Clay uses modern methods to answer these ancient questions and provides an awesome overview of our current understanding of what meaning is, why it's important and how to attain it....

Oliver Burkeman is a journalist and an author. Time is something we all wish we had more of and tons of productivity gurus have proposed strategies to stop it from slipping through our fingers. After years of investigating and reporting on cutting-edge productivity for The Guardian, Oliver has arrived at a slightly different worldview of time and how we should manage it. Expect to learn why becomi...

Stuart Russell is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California and an author. Programming machines to do what we want them to is a challenge. The consequences of getting this wrong become very grave if that machine is superintelligent with essentially limitless resources and no regard for humanity's wellbeing. Stuart literally wrote the textbook on Artificial Intelligence which...

Naama Kates is a writer, producer and creator of the Incel Podcast. The world of involuntary celibates continues to be thrust into the public limelight with incidents in the United States and most recently in the UK with Jake Davison's shooting in Plymouth. Naama has spent years investigating incels so I figured she would be a good place to go to understand what's happening. Expect to learn whethe...

James Smith is a PT and not a life coach. It's a weird time to be alive. The rules are completely out of the window for dating, finding a balance between socialising and work is basically impossible, there are a million different ways to organise your personal finances and that's before you even start to throw Tinder into the mix. Expect to learn why James is actually glad to be back from Australi...

Darren Grimes is a political commentator and a YouTuber. Conservatism might be the least sexy political viewpoint there is. The righthand side of the aisle is hardly setting anyone's pants ablaze and almost of feels like a movement that should come wrapped in a flat cap and a smoking jacket. Is this just the way things are? Expect to learn whether olympic athletes should be figureheads for politic...

Jonny & Yusef join me today as we discuss recent news stories including why breastfeeding now needs recategorising to be more inclusive, how being injected with the flu might improve your lifting numbers, whether the incel movement caused the Plymouth shooting, why Apple's new privacy updates are problematic for privacy and much more... Sponsors: Get 20% discount on the highest quality CBD Product...

Stephen Davis is an investigative reporter and an author. On August 1st 1990, a British Airways flight departed London for Kuwait, on board were nearly 400 passengers including 9 secret service operatives. They landed in a war zone as Sadam Hussein's army rolled into Kuwait and took them hostage. For the next 5 months they were used as human shields, and for the last 30 years BA and the UK Governm...

Dr Samantha Boardman is a psychiatrist and an author. Divorces, bankruptcies and moving house are major stresses. But what about the micro-stressors we deal with every day, how much do they contribute to diminishing our wellbeing and what can we do to stop that from happening? Expect to learn which activities studies say are most effective for making you resilient to stress, how to break a downwar...

Christopher Mason is a Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine, founding Directors of the WorldQuant Initiative for Quantitative Prediction and an author. Eventually, the sun is going to engulf the earth. This means that if we want human and animal life to not be snuffed out within a billion years, we need to reach other worlds and Christopher has put together a 500-years roadmap for how we could do i...

Yeonmi Park is a North Korean defector, an author and a YouTuber. North Korea is the most shrouded, dictatorial and walled-off nation on earth. The only press who are permitted access are get shown a performance masquerading as real life and leaving the country is essentially impossible. At 13 years old, Yeonmi escaped along with her sister & mother. Expect to learn how North Korea's citizens are...

Andrew Gold is a documentary maker and podcaster. In the depths of the Buenos Aires suburbs is a priest who is warding off vampires, levitating followers and battling demons. Or maybe he's kidnapping schizophrenic patients from a local psychiatric ward. Andrew traipsed through Argentina to find out. Expect to learn what it's like to fear 5000 people are going to kill you in South America, how Andr...

Rich Diviney is a retired Navy SEAL Commander and an author. The Navy Seals are one of the most hardened military groups in the world. During 13 tours and over a decade of service, Rich researched and tested his favourite ways to improve and enhance the mental and physical performance of himself and his unit. Expect to learn how to immediately move your system from a sympathetic to parasympathetic...

Robert Plomin, is a psychologist, geneticist and an author. Separating the influence of nature and nurture is something everyone considers. Robert is the 71st most cited psychologist of the 20th century and has run the largest and most clinically detailed twin and adoption studies in history to finally provide definitive answers to these fundamental questions. Expect to learn how much of who we ar...

Ben Aldridge is an author, musician and teacher. After finding himself increasingly anxious and suffering regular panic attacks, Ben purposefully spent an entire year doing things which really pushed the limits of his comfort in an effort to regain control of his mindset. Expect to learn what Ben's Mrs thought of him sleeping on the floor next to the bed, what he discovered when he climbed Everest...

Stephen McGinty is an author, journalist and documentary producer. In 1973, two British men, Roger Chapman & Roger Mallinson were 1500ft below the surface laying trans-Atlantic telephone cables in the Pisces III submarine. What happened next is one of the longest, most dangerous, complex and daring rescues ever attempted as America, Canada, Ireland and Britain marshalled their forces in the air an...

James Nestor is a journalist and an author. We get more energy from our breath than we do from food or hydration or sleep. And yet most people have never considered assessing how properly they breathe. Thankfully James has spent years speaking to the world's leading researchers, breathwork teachers, monks and free divers to find out exactly what we need to know. Expect to learn why computer use is...

Rupert Spira a teacher of the Non-Dualism Direct Path, an author and a potter. Non-dualism is a state of consciousness that many contemplative practitioners aim to achieve. A dissolving of a barrier between the observer and the experience, it's incredibly complex but thankfully Rupert is one of the clearest and most direct teachers of non-duality. Today we tackle some of the biggest questions in e...

Daniel Schmachtenberger is a founding member of The Consilience Project and works in preventing global catastrophic risk. Having accurate sensemaking is a superpower in the 21st century. As the volume of information we need to sort through increases, the ability to distinguish signal from noise becomes ever more important. Given this, I wanted to ask Daniel exactly how he would advise someone to b...

Danny Trejo is an actor and restaurateur. Danny is one of the most recognisable faces in Hollywood history. He's just written a new memoir about his life and today we get to hear his craziest stories. Expect to learn what it was like to meet Charles Manson in jail, who was the hardest guy on-set at Con Air, how Danny nearly ended up with the death penalty, whether he actually robbed Antonio Bander...

Rob Reid is an entrepreneur, podcaster and an author. The last 15 months have been a terrifying taster of just what a global crisis is like, except it wasn't lethal enough to be a threat to our long term survival - but just because this one wasn't, doesn't mean that more deadly existential risks aren't out there. Expect to learn how synthetic biology might be the biggest risk to our survival, what...