You Are Not So Smart You Are Not So Smart

Marina Nitze is a professional fixer of broken systems – a hacker, not of computers and technology, but of the social phenomena that tend to emerge when people get together and form organizations, institutions, services, businesses, and governments. In short, she hacks bureaucracies and wants to teach you how to do the same.

In this episode we sit down with Brian Klaas, author of Fluke, to get into the existential lessons and grander meaning for a life well-lived once one finally accepts the power and influence of randomness, chaos, and chance.

In this episode, we are exploring the complexity of the concept of "genius" with two experts on the topic. First you’ll hear from David Krakauer, the president of The Santa Fe Institute, a research institution in New Mexico dedicated to the study of complexity science, and then you'll hear from professor Dean Keith Simonton, one of the world’s leading researchers into the psychological mechanisms and influences that generate the phenomenon we so often refer to as "genius."

In this episode we sit down with professor Neil Theise, the author of Notes on Complexity, to get an introduction to complexity theory, the science of how complex systems behave – from cells to human beings, ecosystems, the known universe, and beyond – and we explore if Ian Malcolm was right when he told us in Jurassic Park that "Life, um, finds a way."

Is a hotdog a sandwich? Well, that depends on your definition of a sandwich (and a hotdog), and according to the most recent research in cognitive science, the odds that your concept of a sandwich is the same as another person's concept are shockingly low. In this episode we explore how understanding why that question became a world-spanning argument in the mid 2010s helps us understand some of the world-spanning arguments vexing us today.

In this episode we sit down with psychologist Dacher Keltner, one of the world’s leading experts on the science of emotion, the man Pixar hired to help them write Inside Out. In his new book – Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life – he outlines his years of work in this field, the health benefits of awe, the evolutionary origins and likely functions, and how to better pursue more awe and wonder in your own life.