Tag: Michael Muthukrishna

A Theory of Everyone: A Dialogue with Michael Muthukrishna

Converging Dialogues | 30 October 2023 | 1h 36m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Michael Muthukrishna about his book A Theory of Everyone: The New Science of Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going. Discusses the broad scope of the book, the importance of theory, how energy is essential for cooperation, corruption and cooperation, laws of life, cooperation fueling human growth, some of the negative aspects of cooperation, intelligence, immigration, wealth inequality, meritocracy, and more.

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Michael Muthukrishna on Developing a Theory of Everyone

Sean Carroll’s Mindscape | 30 October 2023 | 1h 17m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Michael Muthukrishna about his book A Theory of Everyone: The New Science of Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going. Brings together ideas from cultural evolution, energy engineering, economics, and psychology to outline an integrated theory providing basic organising principles for society based on how people relate to each other and to the physical resources available spelled out as ‘laws’ of energy, innovation, cooperation, and evolution.

Have you bought this book yet? You really must. The highest praise I can give it is that it feels like the next book that Matt Ridley might have written.

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Michael Muthukrishna: A Theory of Everyone

The Dissenter | 25 September 2023 | 1h 40m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Michael Muthukrishna about his book A Theory of Everyone: The New Science of Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going. Discusses the premise of the book; the four laws of life: energy, innovation, cooperation, and evolution; how cooperation expands in human societies, and what distinguishes us from other animals; intelligence and IQ, and the collective brain and the idea of “genius”; the importance of institutions and cultural norms, and the role of ideas; multiculturalism, and how to solve the “paradox of diversity”; our current energy ceiling, and the problems that derive from it and how to solve them; and the challenges of studying human behavior cross-culturally.

It’s finally here! Michael Muthkrishna launched what will surely be the most important book this year in conversation with Matthew Syed at the London School of Economics. You can watch the launch on LSE’s YouTube channel (the presentation starts 7 min 15 s into the video. You should definitely subscribe to his Substack.

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Michael Muthukrishna on Culturalytics

LSE London Alumni Talks | 29 August 2021 | 0h 50m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Michael Muthukrishna about Culturalytics, his initiative that helps organisations measure and manage organisational culture and how this can be used in strategic planning and policy. Discusses what we mean by culture, useful ways to think about culture and the insights this provides for mergers and acquisitions, corporate innovation, employee retention, and policy-making around fake news and climate change.

I listened to this to salve my hunger waiting for Muthukrishna’s book, A Theory of Everyone, which I expect to be the best book of 2023.

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Science in the Time of Cancel Culture

Analysis | 12 July 2021 | 0h 28m | Listen Later | iTunes | Spotify
Michael Muthukrishna speaks to a range of experts to assess the impact of modern social justice movements on scientific research and development. Discusses whether fear of personal or professional harm is strengthening conformism or eviscerating robust intellectual debate; whether open-mindedness on controversial issues can really exist in the scientific community; and whether rigorous public assessment of scientific findings helps to achieve better, more equitable and socially just outcomes.

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Michael Muthukrishna: Human Culture, The Cultural Brain, And Political Corruption

The Dissenter | 9 May 2019 | 1 h 13m | Listen Later
Interview with Michael Muthukrishna about the psychological and evolutionary processes that underlie culture and how culture is transmitted, maintained and modified. Discusses the interplay between biology and culture in explaining large-scale human cooperation; the biological bases of human culture; the Cultural Brain Hypothesis; the relationship between individual-level psychology and group-level traits; genetic and cultural evolution; group selection; prosocial institutions; political corruption and how societies might promote it and also common strategies to fight it that might backfire.

Postscript: Michael Muthukrishna’s book, A Theory of Everyone, is now available for pre-order. I’ve ordered my copy. I believe this will be the best and most significant book of 2023.

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Culture, Innovation, and the Collective Brain

Many Minds | 3 February 2021 | 1h 29m | Listen Later | iTunes
Interview with Michael Muthukrishna about why our brains got so big; how culture makes us smart; where innovation comes from; the cultural brain hypothesis; what this means for a general theory of intelligence across species; explaining the Flynn Effect; how group size and interconnectedness power culture; the evolution of brain size in humans & cetaceans; why psychology needs to become a historical science; and more.

This episode was so insightful that I went looking for more. The episode with Michael Muthukrishna on The Dissenter is also very good.

Postscript: Michael Muthukrishna’s book, A Theory of Everyone, is now available for pre-order. I’ve ordered my copy. I believe this will be the best and most significant book of 2023.

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