Seize the Moment Podcast

On episode 161, we welcome Chris Boutté to discuss the helpful aspects of his addiction treatment, his passion for reading and educating lay-people about critical thinking, Leon's history of addiction and Alen's family history of it, connection and purpose as balms for depression and anxiety, how gaming helped Chris with his struggles, the Moneyball strategy of successful podcasting, the significa...

On episode 160, we welcome Erik Angner to discuss the utility of economics and why it's about much more than markets and spending, why it was once considered to be demonic and the racist history of its detractors, mitigating poverty with wealth redistribution, becoming better science communicators to tackle misinformation about policy proposals related to poverty and climate change, the benefits o...

On episode 159, we welcome Daniel Jolley to discuss the prevalence of conspiracy theories and the personality traits normally associated with those who subscribe to them, the core beliefs of people who believe them and their chronic paranoia of people and institutions, Leon's need for them when feeling victimized and disempowered, why challenging specific conspiracy theories doesn't necessarily re...

On episode 158, we welcome Kirk Schneider to discuss life-enhancing anxiety and how it differs from its everyday counterpart, Kirk's childhood trauma and his early relationship with his psychoanalyst, the existential unconscious and its inception at birth, the ways we tend to elude negative emotions (like boredom and anxiety), the necessity of forming a national mental health initiative, the ambig...

On episode 157, we welcome Marianne Lewis to discuss both/and thinking as opposed to either/or thinking, the inherent paradoxes of our lives and our existential inability to fully transcend them, the false dichotomy of reason vs emotions and how both serve one another, the S-curve and the necessity of fostering other forms of success while still on top, why Lego was able to adapt and thrive and IB...

On episode 156, we welcome Nate Gowdy to discuss his experience photographing the January 6th Storm of the Capitol, being assaulted by the protesters, Nate's reasons for photographing the event and the significance of photo-journalism in US history, Nate's desire to understand more so than condemn the insurrectionists and what he learned about them, almost losing most of his photographs and how he...

On episode 155, we welcome Neil Martin to discuss the history of comedy, the social benefits of telling jokes, how jokes can become misunderstood and why people get offended by them, the importance of intentions, the difference between punching up and punching down, comedy's use in psychotherapy and how it can fail there, the difficulty of studying humor's effects, the dark triad and to which ends...

On episode 154, we welcome Bob Hutchins and Jenny Black to discuss media trauma and how poor mental health is linked to social media use, Jenny's clinical practice and why she's seen an uptick of mental illness in her clients, social media being similar to Big Tobacco and why it should be better regulated, whether we can label our collective phone use an 'addiction', our minds linking purpose and...

On episode 153, we welcome Kennon Sheldon to discuss the free will and determinism debate, why free will is still possible when confronting the data, the different spheres of influence and how the mind can affect one's bio-chemical composition and in turn be affected by it, self-determination theory and the significance of autonomy for well-being and mental health, Ken's interpretation of the famo...

On episode 152, we welcome David Myers to discuss the myth of a replication crisis in psychology research, what behavioral genetics research teaches us about the respective contributions of genes and early environments, the dual processing mind and how it differs from Freud's understanding of the unconscious, the studies underlying implicit bias and effective ways to reduce it, narcissism as pure...

On episode 151, we welcome Rama Chellappa to discuss if we can trust Artificial Intelligence; the history of AI; how developments in AI have impacted social media, facial recognition, autonomous vehicles, and health; the problem of domain shifting when integrating health and lab data from various sources, which record data differently; AI racial bias in facial recognition technology; why AI recomm...

On episode 150, we welcome Dr. Mikkael Sekeres to discuss the social and political climate that fostered the necessity to create the FDA, medical charlatans and the history of pseudo-medicine, the necessity of clinical trials for creating safe and effective medications, why anecdotal evidence isn't equivalent to scientific validation, the FDA's decision to remove the breast cancer indication for t...

On episode 149, we welcome Michael Shermer to discuss why people believe in conspiracy theories; focusing on the evolutionary perspective: better to be safe than sorry, the proxy: that they're symbols to, or natural inferences from, more fundamental beliefs, the tribal: they further unite us with our communities; how they're maintained through cognitive biases; Leon's past conspiratorial mindset a...

On episode 148, we welcome Andy Moffatt to discuss the evolution of hip hop, Andy's interview with Treach of Naughty by Nature and his close relationship with 2Pac, interviewing Wendy Day and how she facilitated Eminem's deal with Dr. Dre when he was close to quitting making music, interviewing Swifty McVay of D12 and his experiences on the road with the group, the NHS and how chronic underfunding...

On episode 147, we welcome Julie Bogart to discuss how to teach children critical thinking skills, the myside bias and why all of us are susceptible to poor reasoning, Julie's decision to home-school her children and the drawbacks of the US education system, how digital life is altering our brains and our children's' ability to read closely and deeply, the character traits of critical thinkers, ho...

On episode 146, we welcome Massimo Pigliucci to discuss the value of teaching ethics, human nature and the evolutionary origins of morality, the drawbacks of moral relativism, Socrates as the first psychotherapist, whether politicians should be taught philosophy or philosophers should become politicians, the importance of role models and good friends for cultivating virtue, seeking out inspiring s...

On episode 145, we welcome former U.S. army officer and paratrooper Gus Lee to discuss the significance of cultivating moral courage, why it's distinct from physical bravery, anger being a mask for fear and weakness rather than a strength, the practical steps to becoming courageous, the negative, life outcomes to persistent selfish tendencies, what Aristotle and Plato can teach us about the good l...

On episode 144, we welcome Andrew Scull to discuss the history of psychiatry and the competing perspectives of the origins of mental illness, the chemical imbalance myth and the various genetic and environmental aspects of depression, why mental health is better classified along dimensional lines rather than boxed into categories, the pharmaceutical industry's decision to curtail further research...

On episode 143, we welcome Moshe Hoffman to discuss game theory and its applications to real-world decision-making, the dove/hawk game and why we don't need to calculate value quantitatively to pursue goals, cultural evolution and why morals don't need to be objectively true for us to subscribe to them, short term vs long term optimization and our tendency to sacrifice the latter for the former, h...

On episode 142, we welcome Steve Magness to discuss the short-term benefits and long-term costs of authoritarian coaching, the importance of distinguishing between the variations of pain to assess whether you're in danger or could continue, cultivating positive self-talk in the form of second and third person speech to manage your inner-critic for better results, Brad Johnson's positive relationsh...

On episode 141, we welcome philosopher Skye Cleary to discuss existential authenticity and the philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir, the importance of cultivating inter-subjectivity for healthy relationships, why nihilism is a lazy response to the world, how the argument of human nature is a bad-faith resistance to the obligation of fighting for structural changes, the erroneous belief that our impuls...

On episode 140, we welcome back Mutah "Napoleon" Beale and Sulaiman Jenkins to follow up with them about their experiences after releasing Mu's biography 'Life is Raw', Napoleon's time in the music industry and why he felt more comfortable around gangsters than musics executives, beginning the Mu2Q podcast and what he appreciates about  podcasting, what he would tell his younger self just breaking...

On episode 139, we welcome David Swift to discuss the pervasive myth of identities, how politicians and pundits exploit identity politics for personal gain, personal identity conflicts and how class and political views can interfere with each other, understanding why rural voters supported Trump and why calling all of them deplorables isn't the answer, the political views of ordinary people and wh...

On episode 138, we welcome Prof. Gwen Dolske and Rudy Salo of the Good Is in the Details Podcast to discuss their podcast journey, Rudy's discomfort with ambiguity and his hesitation of engaging with philosophy, Gwen's love of existentialism and how it inspired her to pursue an advanced degree in philosophy, whether human nature exists and what science tells us about it, contrasting Gwen's introve...

On episode 137, we welcome philosopher Tom Morris to discuss his new book 'The Everyday Patriot', creating ways to overcome political apathy, how democracy and meritocracy were perverted and how to reclaim them, why voting still matters, cultivating a love for family as well as one's country, separating American patriotism from American exceptionalism, how small progress creates major progress, th...