Modern Wisdom

Your first book Psychology of Money was a beast and this next one is absolutely phenomenal.

I think about a lot and that was one of the points of talking to that author who I was speaking with because I know this is going to be my situation how do you prepare mentally when I hope to write many books in my career and I would bet very good money that the first book I wrote will by an order of magnitude be the biggest seller.

it's kind of a hard thing like when I'm 66 how am I going to feel knowing that I peaked at age 36 when psychology money came out it's probably not going to feel that great to be honest of all the problems to have it's not a bad one

I wrote about this in The Psychology of Money

There was another story that I wrote about in The Psychology of Money that I thought was just so ridiculous when I read it.

There's a Morgan House will quote where he says the best way to win the game is to stop moving the goalposts.

And he's wrote this great book called The Psychology of Money.

And it's true that most people treat their goals. Their relationship to their goals is like the horizon that for every step toward it they get. Right. It then moves one step further away.

Atomic Habits by James Clear, Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money. I've spoken to each of these guys individually.

I'm never going to write a book that does more than The Psychology of Money.

Morgan Housel's The Psychology of Money. What a book. Just outstanding.

when Louise Perry wrote her book about the the case against sexual revolution it really put a frame around what I'd been trying to express

one person you need to get on your podcast is Louise Perry so she wrote The Case Against the Sexual Revolution

I wrote a book called The Case Against the Sexual Revolution. I'm generally critical of the sexual revolution and porn.

Louise Perry wrote this amazing book called The Case Against the Sexual Revolution.

David doitch's book The Beginning of Infinity

I read David Deutsches The Beginning of Infinity and was just blown away by what if we're the first hundred billion people that's how many people have lived right yeah a hundred billion I'm including us in that and it could be trillions in the future

If you're trying to read beginning of infinity by fucking David Deutsch, you got a fucking yeah, exactly.

I was reading David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity with chat GPT.

You may have heard me talk about Nick for quite a while, his book Superintelligence which came out 10 years ago in 2014 was super formative.

It basically kicked off the entire AI risk and alignment discussion, and now he's come back with a book that works out what happens if we get it right.

And it's still kind of apocalyptic actually, to be honest.

It's fascinating, it's so interesting, the question of what happens if things go well and what are the weird externalities that we face as a byproduct of that.

Back when Superintelligence came out, this was a very neglected area.

So Superintelligence was basically what happens if we get it wrong.

I remember reading Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence, what, a decade ago? I think that came out. Maybe, yeah, let's call it 10 years ago, something like that.

I think my first introduction to this was probably 2016 or 17 when I read super intelligence by Nick Bostrom.

This book really changed my understanding of human history and where we came from.

I think it was you, Veal Harari in Sapiens, where or no maybe it was Homo Deus, where he talks about how in the future the wars will be fought within intersubjective reality, within the reality of story, within the reality of narrative.

Yuval No Harari Sapiens series

That's one of the main things that I learned from Sapiens, right, by Yuval Noah Harari, about the fact that up until whatever, 15,000 years ago, there's no opportunity for people to have massive amounts of inequality because there's nowhere near enough surplus resources.

He has this it's his new book is really really great it's basically a personal development book masquerading his dating book, he's got this line about self-compassion which I'm going to read to you.

I struggle to believe I'm worthy of moments of joy and peace without first putting myself through a brutal schedule, monitoring my productivity levels down to the minute, perhaps some people apply this earn your cookie mindset in ways that lead to healthy achievements not me, mine is a mutation whereby joy and self-compassion are regularly outlawed by an internal tyrant who decides when I've been flogged enough for one day just when I'm about to collapse a voice inside says okay give him half an hour of peace before bed, but make sure he knows we'll start again bright and early in the morning.

The Bible is a very banned book.

She showed me the Bible and she spoon fed it to me every day.

I would go pick up a Bible and I would open it and I would give my life to Jesus if I were you because that's where you'll find everything.

the bestselling book of all time, the Bible, one of the most famous stories in that book, story of Adam and Eve.

Mary is so fun. I love her writing, her book Feminism against Progress was really great and she's part of the based British women squad along with Louise Perry and Nina power and stuff.

did you read mary harrington's Feminism against Progress

My last book was Feminism against Progress.

this is all what led me to writing the book, which I've just finished writing, Feminism against Progress.

Feminism against Progress will be linked in the show notes below. Go and get that on Amazon right now.

thus I've sat you know collecting cobwebs for the last five years writing a sort of the sequel to that book it's coming out October it's called Determined a science of life without free will and I take what is far in a way a lunatic fringe stance which isn't saying that we have no free will whatsoever all we are is the sum of our biology and its interactions with environment and neither of which we had any fundamental control over and that's who we are

oh shit what's it called determine the size of life without free will you'd think i have that one sorted out by now oh my five years writing it and you can't remember i know my poor publicist just had like apoplexy if listening to this okay determine the science of life without free will penguin random house in your neighborhood grocers soon all of that

Robert sapolsky's got a new book coming out called Determined you know robert sapolsky harvard evolutionary biologist he's coming on in month and a bit and his new books called Determined and it's like how to find happiness in a life with no free will so it'll be interesting

Sapolsky is coming on to talk about his new book Determined in the middle of October.

I got sent through literally today out front Robert Sapolsky's new book have you seen what that is I don't know if I've seen the new one Determined the science of life without free will yeah

well I think I I'll I'll just say it right I mean you know he's a primatologist evolutionist psychologist right neurobiologist I think an evolutionary biologist perhaps evolutionary biologist yeah

The almanac of neval ravacant I must have read at least two or three times.

When everyone read the almanac and the val ravacant they believed that leverage was just the most important thing that you can force multiply your inputs to outputs through code media labor capital whatever the other one is but what it caused lots of people to do is take that eye off the ball and take that eye off the main thing which is the most important thing to them so they started to outsource and try and get leverage on the main thing that they do.

There was a, the Almanac of Naval Ravikant is a book written by my friend Eric Jorgensen. It came out about five years ago. I think it's the most highlighted per word book on Kindle ever.

It's The Almanack of Naval Ravikant of podcasts.

I don't know what I'm reading. It's Eric's book, the Almanac and Naval, it's like, I give that away.

I'd read Steven Pressfield's The War of Art and then Turning Pro and I thought, wow, imagine what would happen if you treated the pursuit of my chosen career, which is podcasting, like an athlete.

I want to turn pro I read Stephen Pressfield War of Art and then I read Turning Pro I want to turn pro with the show what's that mean what would it mean if I treated this pursuit like an athlete does so an athlete they review game tape and they do mindset work and they've got a sports psychologist and they look at what they eat and they look at what they drink and they go to bed on time and they're hanging around with people that are growth minded and they're getting the right coaches and then all the rest everything is done in order to facilitate performance in the thing that they say they care about but everybody has the opportunity to do that you just need to define what the thing is I'm never going to be Patrick Mahomes right yeah I know but I managed to find my thing and then nearly kill myself in dedication toward it

I read it three years ago at the start of the pandemic and I actually read sorry I read the war of art which is Steven Pressfield book and Turning Pro is a chapter in the war of art which he then turned into a sequel and they're both great and you can get both of them by going to chriswillx.com books

There was a quote I found from Steven Pressfield in Turning Pro. The amateur is a narcissist... He views the world hierarchically.

There's a great book, Human Compatible by Stuart Russell.

He wrote a new book called Human Compatible, where he's talking about how algorithms are interacting with humans.

He wrote this book, Human Compatible. So the worldwide textbook on AI may still be the case, but it certainly was for a couple of decades.

The thing that I learned from Stuart Russell, guy that wrote Human Compatible, he's also like, it's the textbook when it comes to computer science. I think he's Mr. Algorithms. And he wrote a book called Human Compatible.

Anyone that's read The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss you know you become unbelievably familiar it's like pedestrianly slow for chapters and chapters and chapters you learn about this guy's walk to the bar that he plays his luta and the sound of his shoes on the cobblestones and all of this so you become really really sort of familiar with him so of course you if it's a well-written character you start to have this sort of sense of affinity with them and you think well he has done well by design especially outright fiction not just uh like new uh news masquerading or fiction masquerading as new should i say um

Why not start to build out Red Rising or The Name of the Wind or something else?

I remember once in The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. He spends like two full chapters explaining this kid's walk to work where he goes to play his loot or something. And he's describing in intense detail the type of cobblestones he walks over.

did you see was it Matthew Walker's book the percentage of doctors or surgeons who work particularly extended shifts and then get in their car to drive home and drive back at the same hospital having just been in an accident it's like a non insignificant number of doctors and surgeons it was Matthew Walker also talked about how they were able to predict when lost percentages in basketball games based on looking at the sleep schedule not knowing the teams just looking at when they were doing back to back east coast west coast travel and just looking at who was going to lose the most sleep they had like a 78% win loss accurate guess and I think that at least as I understand it from the study is that that prompted maybe it was LeBron at the time to go into the players union and say look we need to fix this it was like four games in five days and they were east coast west coast and stuff like that was increasing injury risk

There's a great book called why, uh, Why We Sleep, which is amazing.

Matthew Walker is a guy that wrote Why We Sleep... I've heard a lot of criticisms of Matthew Walker's book and I don't know why.

Highly recommended if people need a bedtime lesson.

There's a big twist nearly at the end of the book.

I've been getting into chick stuff, a lot of chick stuff... I read The Silent Patient. It's like thrillers, really by chicks.

The Silent Patient. Also really great. Good twist at the end.

Be careful what you read if you read too much harry potter you're going to try and cast spells on people once you've had one too many but this is this there's three really that are that are very very interesting here that i think link link together

You know, J.K. Rowling, she's had a bit of a rough time.

You know, she's had a bit of a rough time, she's been cancelled.

When was the last time we had, say, a Harry Potter series? Something that crosses over into mainstream cultural awareness.

Harry Potter Omnibuses. But my point was, you know, those are really dated. The first one will be coming up on 20 years now, or maybe it'll already be over 20 years old.

Harry Potter world at Universal Studios and all of the clothing. And you go to Edinburgh and there's Harry Potter stores, bookshops all over the place, memorabilia.

It sits on the desk next to where I record my podcast. And just by having that there, it was given to me by my speech coach. And I read a couple of poems before I start the episode because it's whimsical and it's good for vocal diction and precision and stuff like that. But the main reason is that that is a physical representation of, I care about precision in speech. And by having it there, every time that I go into the room, I go, you must remember to be precise when I speak.

I mentioned to you that I'd read some Tim Burton, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy, which is really great and fun.

I've got here The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy by Tim Burton, which is poetry. And this is from my speech coach, and he's been getting me to do poetry because it's got these sort of weird rhythms to it. And it's great. I learned the word bivalve the other day, which is, I think, kind of like a clam. Yeah, it must be because he's an oyster, obviously. But just it's cool.

The book is called Magic Pill because there are three ways these drugs could be magic.

The second way in which it could be magic is it could be like a magic trick, an illusion.

The third way, I actually think is the most likely. If you think about the classic stories about magic that we grew up with, think about Aladdin, right? You find the lamp, you rub it, the genie appears and you get to make your wishes and your wishes come true but never quite in the way that you expected, right?

These drugs are an interesting and important tool. The way I think of it is, for a lot of us we're in a trap, and this is the rusty risky trap door we're being offered.

I go through how we can do it. I've been to places that have done it but for now we're facing a pretty shitty decision and we've got to think it through in detail.

I've had a number of conversations Johan Hari's new book Magic Pill. He came on Scott Galloway came on he spoke about it Dr. Mike Israel tell who you just had on your show. He came on he spoke about it The internet really especially maybe my corner of the internet the personal development, bro high agency sovereign individual thing Very concerned about it and I'm Cautiously optimistic but it seems to me based on all of the smart people that I know who would not typically Fall for the he says as he recommends something that's about to destroy the entire world Would not typically fall for something that wasn't robust and that they hadn't done the research on they are Basically saying that this is going to be as big of a revolution as the smartphone was But for health care that you know, we've been promised and I understand why Fen-fen and all of these previous iterations of drugs that had wild crazy side effects super toxic or dangerous or you know Had long-term Risks, I understand why people are not too confident about this one but it does seem like a difference in kind not just a difference in degree and Yeah Flight companies the airlines predicting lower fuel costs because of a lighter populace to transport around Confectionery companies trying to drill their margins because they're expecting to do less sales volume the hip and knee replacement companies Expecting to do lower sales volume and the most interesting one jewelers Because they've had to spend money people's fingers have got fattest They've had to spend money to get their wedding rings changed and increased in size so there's going to be an initial increase boon to get the Jewelry changed again and then after that a little bit of a nosedive because there will be less gold that will be need to fit ever thinner fingers

Yohan Harry's written this new book "Magic Pill" about Ozempic and the most interesting stuff that I found are all the economic impacts downstream.

So uh airline companies predicting lower fuel costs because of a lighter populace all of the confectionary companies Ben and Jerry's are trying to dial in their margins because they know that the sales volume is going to go through the floor.

Hip and knee replacement companies way fewer of those because people are less and this was this was the wildest one jewelers using less gold for fat fingers.

I think that appeals to a lot of people because it protects them. Some parts of that philosophy, if you don't go the whole way, appeal because it sounds like I can armor myself against the world. But I think you also armor yourself against the beauty of the world as well. And I think what you're talking about there is, like, if you're going to crack yourself open, you will feel highs, but you're also going to feel lows. Yeah, there's a therapist have a phrase, some people need tightening and some people need loosening. And some people who are manic, they need tightening, I needed loosening.

And so that was my process. But the problem might one of my problems with stoicism, and I too have great admiration for it in general. But one of the great myths of Western civilization is that reason is separate from emotion. And that if you're more, it's like a teeter talk of the more rational you are, the less emotional you are. That is a complete myth.

Art of Resilience by Ross Edgley, Ryan's book, Ego is the Enemy Obscrupters the Way, both been really formative for me.

For anybody that's going through a bit of a tough time, if you've read or listened to The Obstacle is the Way, enjoyed it and thought I want more. A spiritual successor to that book is The Art of Brazilians from Ross.

Read Art of Resilience by Ross Edgley, Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday and watch the documentary resurfaced with Andy Murray.

Have you seen, speaking of that, and you mentioned Robert Green earlier on, you're on the same mailing list for that. There's some of these that are super, super elaborate.

And I remember being like, oh, that was like, I don't know, like cool or whatever, but that Robert Green book, as soon as I saw that it did that, and I'm sending a fucking video of this to anyone that I can. This is like magic.

It's leather bound, gold embossed, 48 on the front.

And then as you look at the side, it's gold, like just like a gold boundary on the outside of the paper.

But as you splay the pages out in one direction, it's your face. As you splay the pages out in the other, it's that famous portrait of Machiavelli.

It's the sort of thing you can't not take a photo of.

Melissa Carney's new book The Two Parent Advantage, you know, looks at this through a policy-wank DC lens, right? There's very little ideology coming into this.

I had Melissa Carney who wrote The Two Parents Advantage recently and I think a book comes out today and it's causing all manner of a shit storm on Twitter which is just fantastic it doesn't surprise me

What has the response been like to you writing a book called The Two Parent Advantage How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind?

It's a lot of it is wow you're brave and it really shouldn't be that brave.

And then sort of more quietly people are like this makes a lot of sense and I'm glad you're talking about this so I've been actually really encouraged by the response I'm getting and the other sort of set of responses that have been particularly validating or bolstering to me are from people who work in the communities really impacted by the decline in the two-parent family groups that work with single moms, unmarried parents.

The things I was really worrying about like did I miss something? Did I not connect the dots in some particular way that I'm missing and I haven't gotten any negative reactions that's made me question anything I've written in the book.

If you expect an absolute shit storm and just get a small amount of shit I guess that or an okay amount of shit that proportionally that should be fine.