029 - Labels - Adam Alter

029 - Labels - Adam Alter

I did something this week that I’m sure many people secretly do every day. I stopped, talked to myself for a moment, and checked to see how much slack was in the leash I keep on my tongue.



I was reminded that I need to do that from time to time, or at least I believe that I do, by a bit of news that was passed around for a few days this week. The reports said that one of the government’s most prestigious energy laboratories was working to eradicate the Southern accent – not from the planet, mind you, just from employees who had requested the service.



The Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a place where Nobel laureates hang out. It’s a place where thousands of scientists work daily trying to solve some of the world’s most serious problems. It has, according to the website, a $1.46 billion annual budget. This week, NPR reported that the Tennessee laboratory swiftly canceled its plans to hold a six-week course aimed at reducing the Southern drawl among employees. They explained to reporters that the course was created at the request of employees, not the lab, and that it was also shot down by other employees who found the idea offensive.



I learned through this reporting that there are professional twang assassins who go around to businesses and large organizations like this one helping people neutralize and flatten their native lilts and inflections. Not just the Southern accent either, if your organization is chugging along thanks to regional dialects weighted down with negative associations, professionals can help rid you of that baggage.



I have to admit, it bothers me that brilliant scientists would be self-conscious about droppin’ the letter g, and leaving behind a trail of y’alls during lectures about spallation neutron sources and high flux isotope reactors. But, I get it. I feel for them. If I hadn’t spent so much time over the years working to flatten out my own Southern accent, and if I knew what a high flux isotope reactor was, I might consider taking that course.



I don’t hate the Southern accent. I’m not ashamed of it. I share my motivations with Stephen Colbert who explained why he flattened out his tongue back in 2006 in an interview with 60 Minutes. When Morley Safer asked him why he didn’t sound like other people from South Carolina, Colbert said, “At a very young age, I decided I was not going have a southern accent. When I was a kid watching TV, if you wanted to use a shorthand that someone was stupid, you gave the character a Southern accent. Now that’s not true. Southern people aren’t stupid, but I didn’t want to seem stupid. I wanted to seem smart.”



I want to seem smart too, or, at least, not dumb. That’s why I hide my accent and occasionally reel it back in when I notice it’s getting too frisky. The Southern accent tells people you are from the South, and being from the South labels you with an assortment of negative associations, and the associative architecture of memory causes people to involuntarily, unconsciously, invisibly change they way they think, feel, and behave once such a label worms its way into the brain.



Consider these two phenomena – the Baker/baker paradox and the halo effect. The Baker/baker paradox describes how subjects in studies tend find it very difficult to remember last names like Farmer or Baker but find it very easy to remember that each person was a baker or a farmer. The last names are part of weak networks with few nodes while the professions are part of vast networks with constellations of nodes connected to ideas all over the mind. How many Farmers can you name? How many items can you name that you might find on a farm? The stronger the network, the easier it is to think about something, to remember it, and to feel whatever your culture and upbringing has primed you to feel about it. That’s why the halo effect is so powerful. In what is now known as The Hannah Study, subjects watched as a young girl answered a series of difficult questions correctly and a se

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274 - Cascades - Greg Satell

274 - Cascades - Greg Satell

In this episode we sit down with Greg Satell, a communication expert whose book, Cascades, details how rapid, widespread change can sweep across groups of people big and small, and how understanding the psychological mechanisms at play in such moments can help anyone looking to create change in a family, institution, or even nation, prepare for the inevitable resistance they will face.• Special Offer From Greg Satell• Greg Satell's Website• Greg Satell's Blog• Greg Satell's Twitter• Newsletter• How Minds Change• David McRaney’s Twitter• YANSS Twitter• Show Notes Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

27 Marras 20231h 10min

273 - The Conspiracy Test - Jesse Richardson

273 - The Conspiracy Test - Jesse Richardson

In this episode Jesse Richardson tells us all about ConspiracyTest.org, a new project designed to be a weird, fun, and cleverly educational way to explore just how skeptical you are (and could be) about a variety of conspiracy theories. The whole thing is designed to be very sharable and very viral, and it's launching right before Thanksgiving 2023 so that you can share it with your conspiracy-theory-entertaining friends and family over the holidays, in person or over social media (but you should definitely try it out on yourself first).• Newsletter• School of Thought• The Conspiracy Test• Metaconspiracy• How Minds Change• David McRaney’s Twitter• YANSS Twitter• Jesse Richardson's Website• Jesse Richardson's Twitter• Your Bias Is• Your Fallacy Is• Free Learning List• The Rules of Civil Conversation• Show Notes(thanks for listening, share with abandon) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

12 Marras 202358min

272 - Quit! - Annie Duke (rebroadcast)

272 - Quit! - Annie Duke (rebroadcast)

I recently sat down for a live event and Q&A with the great Annie Duke to discuss her new book, Quit: The power of knowing when to walk away. This episode is the audio from that event. Quit is all about how to develop a very particular skill: how to train your brain to make it easier to know which goals and plans are worth sticking to and which are not. In Quit, Duke teaches you how to get good at quitting. Drawing on stories from elite athletes like Mount Everest climbers, founders of leading companies like Stewart Butterfield, the CEO of Slack, and top entertainers like Dave Chappelle, Duke explains why quitting is integral to success, as well as strategies for determining when to hold em, and when to fold em, that will save you time, energy, and money.• Connections• Newsletter• Annie Duke's Twitter• Annie Duke’s Website• School of Thought• The Conspiracy Test• The Alliance for Decision Education• The Decision Education Podcast• Show Notes Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

29 Loka 202359min

271 - Survival of the Richest - Douglas Rushkoff (rebroadcast)

271 - Survival of the Richest - Douglas Rushkoff (rebroadcast)

In this episode we sit down with Douglas Rushkoff, a media scholar, journalist, and professor of digital economics who has a new fire in his belly when it comes to the world of billionaire preppers, which comes across in his new book Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires – inspired by his invitation to consult a group of the world’s richest people on how to spend their money now to survive an apocalypse they fear is coming within their lifetimes.How Minds ChangeDavid McRaney’s TwitterYANSS TwitterShow NotesDouglas Rushkoff's Website Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

15 Loka 20231h 1min

270 - Defining Genius

270 - Defining Genius

In this show you'll hear the first episode of a documentary series I made for Himalaya, an audio service devoted to inspirational and educational content that asked me if I had any ideas for a book that I had yet to pursue, and sure enough, I did. The series is all about the difficulty of defining the word "genius," and out of that launching point it goes deep into the science of human potential and the history of the both the word and all the ideas we have attempted to understand and express when using it.How Minds ChangeDavid McRaney’s TwitterYANSS TwitterShow NotesExploring Genius Audio Documentary Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

1 Loka 20231h 12min

269 - Deconstructing How Minds Change - Michael Taft

269 - Deconstructing How Minds Change - Michael Taft

In celebration of How Minds Change, my new book, turning one-year-old, in this episode Michael Taft interviews David McRaney about how minds do and do not change, the process behind writing a book about that, and what he has learned since writing and promoting it.Michael is a meditation teacher, bestselling author, and  a mindfulness coach – and he specializes in secular, science-based mindfulness training. If you are interested in a science-based, secular book about meditation and and mindfulness, I highly recommend his book,The Mindful Geek, snd I recommend guided meditation with him. He offers that at The Alembic in Berkeley. You can join them virtually, over the internet. Links below.I also recommend his podcast, Deconstructing Yourself. It is all about entheogens and neurofeedback and brain hacking. If you are a Carl Sagan loving, science endorsing, evidence based sort of person – a nerd, geek, or skeptic or humanist who wants to know more about meditation and deep dive into what we do and do not know about it – that's what his podcast is about. Sam Harris will be a guest on there soon, and I think many of you will love that episode.Deconstructing YourselfThe AlembicMichael TaftHow Minds ChangeDavid McRaney’s TwitterYANSS TwitterShow NotesNewsletterPatreon Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

14 Syys 20231h 4min

268 - The Status Game - Will Storr (rebroadcast)

268 - The Status Game - Will Storr (rebroadcast)

In this episode we welcome back author Will Storr whose new book, The Status Game, feels like required reading for anyone confused, curious, or worried about how politics, cults, conspiracy theories communities, social media, religious fundamentalism, polarization, and extremism are affecting us - everywhere, on and offline, across cultures, and across the world.What is The Status Game? It’s our primate propensity to perpetually pursue points that will provide a higher level of regard among the people who can (if we provoked such a response) take those points away. And deeper still, it’s the propensity to, once we find a group of people who regularly give us those points, care about what they think more than just about anything else.In the interview, we discuss our inescapable obsession with reputation and why we are deeply motivated to avoid losing this game through the fear of shame, ostracism, embarrassment, and humiliation while also deeply motivated to win this game by earning what will provide pride, fame, adoration, respect, and status.Will Storr’s Website: https://willstorr.comHow Minds Change: www.davidmcraney.com/howmindschangehomeShow Notes: www.youarenotsosmart.comNewsletter: https://davidmcraney.substack.comPatreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

3 Syys 20231h 16min

267 - Do Your Own Research - Sedona Chinn

267 - Do Your Own Research - Sedona Chinn

Sedona Chinn, who studies how people make sense of competing scientific, environmental, and health-related claims, joins us to discuss her latest research into doing your own research. In her latest paper she found that the more a person values the concept of doing your own research, the less likely that person is to actually do their own research. In the episode we explore the origin of the concept, what that phrase really means, and the implications of her study on everything from politics to vaccines to conspiratorial thinking.Sedona Chinn's WebsiteSedona Chinn's TwitterSedona Chinn's PaperThe Other Paper MentionedHow Minds ChangeDavid McRaney’s TwitterYANSS TwitterShow NotesNewsletterPatreon Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

19 Elo 202341min

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