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.
087 - Paranoia
086 - Change My View
085 - Misremembering - Julia Shaw (rebroadcast)
084 - Getting Gamers - Jamie Madigan
083 - Idiot Brain - Dean Burnett
082 - Crowds (rebroadcast)
081 - The Climate Paradox
080 - Deep Canvassing
079 - Separate Spheres
078 - The Existential Fallacy
077 - The Conjunction Fallacy
076 - The Genetic Fallacy
075 - Special Pleading / Moving the Goalposts
074 - Begging The Question
073 - Bayes' Theorem
072 - The Dunning-Kruger Effect (Rebroadcast)
071 - The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy
070 - The No True Scotsman Fallacy
069 - The Black And White Fallacy
068 - The Strawman Fallacy
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