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.
108 - Pandora's Lab
107 - Debate
106 - The Climate Paradox (rebroadcast)
105 - Optimism Bias
104 - Labels (rebroadcast)
103 - Desirability Bias
102 - WEIRD Science (rebroadcast)
101 - Naive Realism (rebroadcast)
100 - The Replication Crisis
099 - The Half Life of Facts
098 - Active Information Avoidance
097 - Scams (rebroadcast)
096 - Progress
095 - The Backfire Effect - Part Three
094 - The Backfire Effect - Part Two
093 - The Backfire Effect - Part One
091 - Learned Helplessness (rebroadcast)
090 - Reality - Donald Hoffman
089 - Connections - James Burke
088 - Moral Arguments
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