Mentally Unscripted (Mentallyunscripted)

In the Mentally Unscripted Origin Story, Paul and Scott discuss the origins of their moral philosophy by reviewing their scores on the moral foundations study (moralfoundations.org). 

COVID vaccine considerations. Paul and Scott discuss the excitement about the upcoming vaccine and some critical considerations everyone must ask before getting pricked.

Paul and Scott discuss Sam Harris’ message to the Intellectual Dark Web, the downfall of political discourse, and how to think about improving communication as we head toward 2021.

References
Sam Harris discussion (https://youtu.be/lmcdu6B_YUU)

Paul and Scott discuss the power of grand narrative, the desire for political figures to attach our fates to their success, and what we must ask before agreeing to them (hint – there are many hidden costs).

Political hypocrisy is rampant. Paul and Scott discuss the hypocrisy of elected officials during the COVID pandemic and attempt to understand why it happens, why we are so angry, and what, if anything, can make it better.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• After warnings to avoid travel, Denver Mayor Hancock flies to visit family for Thanksgiving
• After voting for dining ban, LA County supervisor dines out at local restaurant
• Nancy Pelosi gets hair done at SF salon in spite of COVID-19 rules

Paul and Scott explore conspiracy theories, why they are so prevalent in modern society, and how to prevent your mind from accepting the most ridiculous stories ever imagined.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The Illusory Truth Effect at Farnam Street

Paul and Scott discuss their love of the scientific process, different ways of identifying the good kind of science (TY Farnam Street!), the seductive allure of bad science, and why we hate yard signs that read “I believe in science.” 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• How To Spot Bad Science
• The Distrust of Intellectual Authority

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Should I vote? That’s a question more people are asking themselves in the United States. Paul and Scott discuss the utility of voting and how the U.S. can improve its current election model.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt
• Democracy: the God that Failed, by Hans Herman Hoppe
• The Bob Murphy Show, Ep 142 Explaining John Nash’s Dissertation and Why Russell Crowe Got It Backwards Media censors Ron Paul Iowa Caucus results
• History of US Voting
• Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
• Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another, by Matt Taibbi

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

In the second part of Mentally Unscripted’s “Should I vote?” series, Paul and Scott explore alternatives to physical voting and discover the technology – from online to blockchain – just isn’t ready for prime time.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Voting in Taiwan
• Going from Bad to Worse: From Internet Voting to Blockchain Voting
• Microsoft Open Source Voting
• Charles Hoskinson review of MIT whitepaper

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Paul and Scott attempt to make sense of the “Big Tech Censorship” debate. In this episode, they discuss the nature of censorship, why it’s difficult to moderate speech in the digital age, and ways of making it better.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck
• Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump
• Trump v. Knight First Amendment Institute – SCOTUS Blog
• Regulate Tech Like a Utility
• Stratechery Article on Moderation
• David Sacks Digital Bill of Rights
• Charles Hoskinson Discussion on Big Tech Censorship

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Paul and Scott dive into the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset.” We discover what they want to achieve, the cost of change, and possible risks of adopting these policies. 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Davos 2021
• World Economic Forum
• The Great Reset
• The Tom Woods Show ep. 1814
• What Is the Great Reset? Part I: Reduced Expectations and Bio-techno-feudalism
• The Great Reset, Part II: Corporate Socialism
• The Great Reset, Part III: Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics
• The Great Reset, Part IV: “Stakeholder Capitalism” vs. “Neoliberalism”
• The Great Reset for Dummies
• World Economic Forum’s Great Reset is raising eyebrows
• From Lockdowns to “The Great Reset”
• Rationalizing “The Great Reset”
• Introducing the ‘Great Reset,’ World Leaders’ Radical Plan to Transform the Economy

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

What exactly are these two idiots trying to do here? In this episode, Paul and Scott discuss their higher purpose. In other words, why they're doing this podcast.

Paul and Scott explain their approach to critical thinking using the accusations that Tom Brady is racist for winning the Super Bowl as an example.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Idiocracy: People Now Calling Tom Brady “Racist” For Winning Super Bowl During Black History Month
• Tom Brady Called ‘Racist’ on Social Media for Winning Super Bowl During Black History Month

Mental models, biases, and fallacies mentioned in this episode:

• Falsifiability
• Cause and Effect
• Second Order Consequences
• Hanlon’s Razor
• Ad Hominem

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott critique Stephanie Kelton's The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy.

When it's over, you'll understand better MMT's basic concepts. And you'll hear arguments about why it's not the cure-all its proponents claim.

Does it seem that the last several elections were a contest to see which candidate can promise more free stuff? If so, you're not alone.

Free healthcare, education, and money dominated recent elections.

In the past, one central question concerned us when it came to such promises. That is, "how is the government going to pay for all this free stuff?"

Then, Modern Monetary Theory, known as MMT, exploded onto the scene. And when it did, it pushed that fundamental question to the back burner. The reason is the central principle of MMT: the U.S. federal government can print as much money as it needs. You see, under MMT, the government can support massive spending programs. All with no concern for pesky things like deficits and debt.

No doubt you have friends and family who like the idea of the government paying for healthcare and education. And they may not know anything about MMT. But they likely heard politicians like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claiming that the U.S. can afford these massive programs. And it sounds good. After all, everyone has the right to healthcare, education, and a living wage.

But your argument that the U.S. government needs to operate its finances the same as a household doesn't convince them. "Deficits don't matter," is all your friends and family say.

Armed with the knowledge from this episode, you'll have better conversations with friends and family about MMT. You'll understand its shortcomings and where we need more explanation. And you'll know why we can't use economics to solve moral problems.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The Deficit Myth, by Stephanie Kelton

Mental models, biases, and fallacies mentioned in this episode:

• Falsifiability
• Reversibility
• Root Cause Analysis / Don’t Only Treat the Symptoms

Image by Markus Winkler from Pixabay

Focus on building your health, wealth, and relationships to improve your life. It's often a gap in knowledge or an inability to communicate that causes problems in these areas. Mental models are a way to improve both.

Imagine being able to have a productive, enlightening discussion with friends and family. A debate where everyone understands and accepts that differences of opinion exist. And those differences are a feature, not a bug, of a vibrant, rational world.

Or, imagine looking at yourself in the mirror. And in your reflection, you see a confident person—someone who knows that they're making the best decisions possible. You're free from worry and second-guessing. And you know that if something terrible happens, you'll stand up and deal with it with the calm and control of James Bond.

That's the power of a mental model.

In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott discuss their top mental models.

You'll notice that Scott's mental models are foundational principles. As such, they're helpful in many situations. Paul's, meanwhile, are less ubiquitous but more powerful. You may not use them as often, but they pack more of a punch.

After listening to this episode, you'll understand the power of mental models.

What did you think of our mental models? Agree with our choices or disagree? Any mental models you think we missed? Let us know in the comments.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Thinking Fast and Slow
• Harrison Bergeron

Mental models, biases, and fallacies mentioned in this episode:

• Confirmation bias
• Fundamental attribution error
• False consensus effect
• Illusion of control
• Unintended consequences
• Entropy
• Inertia
• System 1 / system 2 thinking
• Second-order thinking
• Opportunity costs

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

Attention is the new currency. And news outlets will do anything to get it. That includes doling out biased information lacking context or straight-up deception. Critical thinking is your weapon to cut through the noise. But how? The New York Times presents a method, called SIFT, in the article, Don't Go Down the Rabbit Hole.

In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott dissect SIFT. In doing so, they render their judgment on this model.

To borrow a phrase from data processing, garbage in garbage out. That means the output of any model is only as good as the data you put into it. SIFT is no exception. It's only as good as the effort you put into it.

While it seems like the authors are presenting this model in good faith, it only works if you use it in good faith. If all you're doing is looking for information to confirm your biases, this model is perfect for you.

To put it another way. SIFT is much more apt to give biased, agenda-driven people the illusion of critical thinking than it is to help them get to the meat of an argument. Thus, it will only reinforce the notion that they're correct. 

Think of it as "How stupid people can make it look like they're thinking without having to think."

Listen to the podcast to hear the flaws in the model and how you can improve it.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity, by Douglass Murray
• Paul Graham

Mental models, biases, and fallacies mentioned in this episode:

• Incentives matter
• Consensus and social proof
• Steelman
• Confirmation bias
• Disconfirming evidence
• Cognitive dissonance
• Probabilistic thinking
• Bayesian updating
• Halo/Horn effect
• Triangulation
• Prioritization
• Low information diet
• Availability heuristic
• Silly/serious syndrome

Image by John Forster from Pixabay 

Modern monetary theory may not have won the fiscal policy debate. But its promise of free money has more politicians listening.

Stephanie Kelton, the author of The Deficit Myth, appeared on Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast. Paul and Scott were hopeful that Ms. Kelton would answer some of the questions they had about MMT coming out of their review of The Deficit Myth.

Guess what? Ms. Kelton left them disappointed.

Paul and Scott continue their discussion of MMT in this episode of Mentally Unscripted. They cover a range of topics, including:

• Whether MMT has indeed won the fiscal policy debate?
• More politicians are boarding the MMT bandwagon. But do they understand it? Or is the MMT refrain of "deficits don't matter" catnip to policy-makers who want to buy votes?
• Does MMT destroy the incentive to innovate?
• Is MMT shifting the conversation surrounding fiscal questions without solving any problems?
• Is MMT devoid of concrete steps to achieve its goals. Is the lack of a framework and objective measures a problem? "It's descriptive" and "we have to look at the situation when we get there" will only go so far.

Image by kalhh from Pixabay

Can bitcoin free us from government overreach? Can it restore the financial stability we've been losing since the creation of the [[https://www.federalreserve.gov/][Fed]], on December 23, 1913?

Even if you've been living in a cave for the last five years, you've heard of bitcoin. But most of us only know about it from the hype surrounding this new "digital currency." It's true that bitcoin offers an exciting and risky investment opportunity. 

But, there's another side to it.

In 2008, during the worldwide financial crisis, [[https://nakamoto.com/satoshi-nakamoto/][Satoshi Nakamoto]] published a famous white paper, [[https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf][Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System]]. In it, he provided the technical details for a new peer-to-peer cash system. 

But his intent wasn't to create a new way for college students to pay for pizza on the Internet. Nakamoto had an ideological motivation.

Nakamoto saw the financial crisis as evidence that the current financial system had problems. Powerful governments, banks, and other institutions controlled it. And the average person had no choice but to trust those in control to do what's best for everyone else.

The following quote from Nakamoto sums it up best:

The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts. - Satoshi Nakamoto

In the financial crisis, Nakamoto saw that we can't trust the politicians and financiers.

A philosophy of trust forms the foundation of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It's freedom, transparency, and credibility that creates that trust.

It's the foundation of trust that has many believing that bitcoin can replace the Fed. Or at least offer a competing system. One that gives us the ability to insulate ourselves from the Fed's poor monetary policies.

The current financial system is an opaque, closed system that benefits insiders. At the same time, it's making the lower and middle classes more dependent on the government. Nakamoto's vision of bitcoin is that of an open system beneficial to all.

In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott start a discussion of bitcoin. They do so by looking at the philosophy of liberty underpinning its creation. They discuss whether we need bitcoin, the conditions necessary for its widespread adoption, and the risks to adopting it.

This episode only scratches the surface of the bitcoin discussion. It's an excellent place to start learning about what Paul and Scott think about bitcoin. You'll hear about their attitude toward government monetary policy. And the value and necessity for liberty in our lives.

This episode won't be the last about bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Paul and Scott guarantee more will follow soon.

Image by VIN JD from Pixabay

You've seen the headlines. Bitcoin is gaining in value, and the sky's the limit. Of course, you're wondering if you need to jump onto the gravy train before it's too late. But you're a logical, thinking person. You've wondered why anyone would pay money for something that doesn't exist? Not in a physical sense, anyway. And what's the likely future for bitcoin? Will it keep its value? What are the risks facing bitcoin and the crypto market?

Those are all excellent questions. And they're questions a rational person should ask in our new financial landscape.

U.S. government spending is through the roof. MMT is growing in popularity. And the political strategy of the moment is buying votes in exchange for promises of free stuff. Add those together, and you get unabated government spending.

Despite protestations from the government, the Fed, and the deficits don't matter crowd, inflation is real. And it's happening right now.

You may be looking at bitcoin as an inflation hedge. But the idea of paying money for a bunch of electronic 1's and 0's is unsettling. After all, you have to save for your kids' exorbitant college tuition. So, what do you do? The answer is that you start by building a foundation of knowledge built on rationality and not hype.

In Mentally Unscripted's second bitcoin episode, Paul and Scott discuss where Bitcoin gets its value. Then they move on to discuss the risks facing bitcoin and the crypto market.

Paul and Scott start by talking about subjective value. Then they discuss extrinsic vs. intrinsic value. For risks, they talk about the adoption of bitcoin and the likelihood of future government regulation.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Positive feedback loop
Fear of missing out
Grisham's law - good money pushes out good money
Friction
Security - Freedom tradeoff
History of the income tax

Image by MichaelWuensch from Pixabay

The Fed says there's low inflation. The data seems to support that point. But try telling that to anyone who's been to the grocery store in the past week. So, what gives? Is the Fed lying about inflation?

In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott discuss the basics of inflation. And they assure you that you're not crazy. There's a reason why the government is telling you there's no inflation. But your grocery store bill says there is.

They begin by discussing the definition of inflation and the various forms inflation can take. Then they discuss the causes of inflation. And Scott explains why it's not those greedy capitalists.

Next, they talk about asset price inflation vs. consumer price inflation. And they explain how government money printing contributes to the growing wealth disparity. And for a little extra fun, they discuss the difference between capitalism and cronyism. True to form, Scott doesn't miss an opportunity to rant about the need to limit government power.

Next up is a discussion of transitory inflation and who inflation hurts the most. Paul and Scott close the episode with a criticism of the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Note: Scott says in this episode that inflation will exist in a free-market economy. This is an example of his mouth moving faster than his brain. While there may be inflation in a free market, deflation is more likely.

- The Ultimate Guide to Inflation, by Lyn Alden
- There's another side to the story. Look at the bigger picture.
- Define your terms. Beware of shifting definitions and moving the goalposts.
- Complex systems
- Base rates
- The map is not the territory
- The Cantillon effect (this is a more critical take in the Cantillon Effect)

Image by Foto-Rabe from Pixabay

Policing has been a hot topic since the summer of 2020. As one would expect, the enforcement arm of the state has the potential to overstep its bounds. Any organization with a monopoly on the legal use of force can inflict an incredible amount of misery on society. From stealing private property to the use of lethal force, often without accountability or consequence. So, the critical question is: how do we protect the people from the police? Do we reform the police when it goes astray, or do we take more drastic measures?

In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott begin to explore these questions.

They cover a lot of ground. That ground includes why we have police and the desired outcome of policing. They also discuss why defunding or abolishing the police is not the answer. And they explain some alternatives to our current model.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

- Viral Video of Cops Harassing Kids Riding Bikes Without a License Reveals the Root of America's Policing Problem
- Don't Abolish the Police – End Their Monopoly
- A randomized control trial evaluating the effects of police body-worn cameras

Concepts mentioned in this episode:
- First-principles
- Incentives matter
- Chesterton's fence
- False consensus effect
- The power of saying, "I don't know"
- Unintended consequences
- What is the end goal?
- Legitimacy/brute force dynamic
- 80/20 rule

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Join Paul and Scott as they explore current headlines. In this episode, they pick some interesting headlines and discuss the selected articles. In the process, they shine the all-seeing eye of critical thinking on the content.

In these headline episodes of Mentally Unscripted, you'll learn how to read mainstream news stories with a critical eye. You'll see how Paul and Scott identify biases and fallacies in the articles. You'll also learn to identify missing information. And you'll see how they apply mental models in evaluating the articles.

So strap in and enjoy. It's a fun ride.

Articles discussed:
- Half of US states have fully vaccinated at least 50% of adults. We need to keep going to prevent future outbreaks, official says
- Bitcoin Volatility Put Weekend Traders on Stomach-Churning Ride
- China Mines More Bitcoin Than Anywhere Else. The Government Wants That to Stop
- The Wuhan Lab and Gain-of-Function Disagreement

Mental Models discussed:
- Correlation Does Not Imply Causation
- Cost / Benefit
- Illusion of Control
- Root Cause Analysis
- Identify Assumptions
- Base Rates
- Bayesian Updating
- Probabilistic Thinking

Paul and Scott are back with more headlines. It's a fun and informative look at a few of the big topics in the news. This time they tackle migration, the federal voting law, and take a quick whack at inflation.

In these headline episodes of Mentally Unscripted, you'll learn how to read mainstream news stories with a critical eye. You'll see how Paul and Scott identify biases and fallacies in the articles. You'll also learn to identify missing information. And you'll see how they apply mental models in evaluating the articles.

Listen to this episode and start having intelligent, productive conversations with your friends, family, neighbors, and enemies. 

Articles discussed:

• Migration
  • Harris, in Guatemala, tells potential migrants they will be turned back: 'Do not come'
  • Biden admin policies 'incentivize' migrants to cross border: Vitiello
• Voting
  • Hasan: Manchin, Sinema 'aiding and abetting' GOP's war on democracy
  • Manchin Defends Opposition to Dem Voting-Rights Legislation
  • Manchin to vote against bill federalizing elections, dealing major blow to Democrats
• Inflation
  • Shrinking packages are one way companies are concealing higher prices

Critical thinking concepts & mental models discussed:

• First principles
• Moral hazard
• Reversibility
• Hanlon’s razor
• Fundamental attribution error
• Cost/benefit analysis
• Notice
• Credibility
• Compromise vs. winner-takes-all

Bitcoin is legal tender in El Salvador. And it's ok to talk about COVID's possible lab-based origin.

The world is changing. And Paul and Scott are helping you navigate the absurdity.

In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott talk about the COVID Wuhan lab theory.

That's right. Saying COVID came from a lab in Wuhan won't get you labeled a conspiracy theorist anymore. And, even better, it won't get you kicked off social media. It's mainstream now. And our hosts have some fun with it.

Then they move on to Bitcoin's take over of the world economy. And it starts in El Salvador. Ok, maybe not. Does it matter that El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender? Listen to this episode to find out.

Articles discussed:

• Bitcoin's El Salvador Option | Mises Wire
• El Salvador Is Not the Birthplace of Bitcoin’s Future
• Kudzu: The Invasive Vine that Ate the South

Critical thinking concepts & mental models discussed:

• Probabilistic Thinking
• Occam’s Razor
• Gaslighting
• Incentives
• Higher Order Problems
• Authority/Credibility
• Accountability

Photo by David McBee from Pexels

George Silverman is a psychologist, marketer, author, and entrepreneur. He's busy working on his newest innovation: MindSkills.

"We have repealed geography . . . Now you can be stupid in two places instead of one."

- George Silverman

George joins Paul and Scott on episode 24 of Mentally Unscripted. In this episode, our co-hosts sit speechless as George talks about his history - from inventing the telephone focus group to developing MindSkills. George explains what it is to "go meta" and how MindSkills improves upon the idea of mental models.

George brings the house in this episode of Mentally Unscripted. He imparts far more wisdom than we can put in the show notes. So download this episode and sit back. You're in store for an excellent time.

And follow him on Twitter. Links below.

• Follow George on Twitter.
• Go Meta or Go Home - George’s article on Medium about the granddaddy of all MindSkills -- going meta.
• George’s Medium page.
• MindSkills Playbook - George's Roam page where he's documenting MindSkills.

Wisdom and Strategy tweets about purpose and achieving your goals. He's also an author working on his first book.

Paul and Scott welcome Wisdom and Strategy in this episode of Mentally Unscripted. They have a great conversation about Twitter and imposter syndrome. The three also compare their strategies for content creation.

Tune in for a great conversation. Don't forget to check out Wisdom and Strategy on Twitter and Linktree. And be on the lookout for his first book about conquering your career, releasing soon.

The Great Reset is still here. There’s more evidence that political, business, and religious leaders are moving forward with their plan to bring about a global utopia. But does that evidence prove what you think it proves? Or is your brain tricking you into believing a conspiracy theory?

In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott revisit the Great Reset.

They start off by talking about apophenia, or false pattern recognition. Apophenia is our tendency to see patterns in random data that don’t exist. And it’s one reason why we dream up and believe in conspiracy theories.

Then they dive into the Great Reset. Believers in the Great Reset point to Blackrock and censorship as two bits of evidence that the conspiracy is real.

Paul and Scott use false pattern recognition to analyze that evidence.

First up is Blackrock. Blackrock is buying up residential real estate in the U.S. Is that a sign that we're moving towards a world where "you'll own nothing, and you'll be happy?" Or is it something else?

Next up is censorship. Is big tech working on behalf of the government to censor dissent? And is that another step toward a world where the elites protect us from harmful ideas? Or is big tech cozying up to the government to protect its market dominance?

The first step is to identify what patterns lead us to believe that those in power are marching toward The Great Reset. Then, we must test the evidence. And ask ourselves the tricky question: is what we're seeing and believing real?

Links:

• How False Patterns Cause You to Make Bad Decisions
• BlackRock owns America's homes — and a whole lot else
• The Inevitable Coronavirus Censorship Crisis is Here
• Censorship Kills
• Court Documents Show U.S. Government Directed Big Tech to Censor Public

Don’t forget, if you like this episode, tell your friends. And go to Apple Podcasts and leave us a 5-star rating and review. 

We appreciate you helping us get the word out!

Engage with us on Twitter. 

Scott - @StrengthReason
Paul - @thoughtmachina

Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger from Pexels

Joey, the Prypreneur, is a former web developer who now teaches people how to develop better habits and improve their performance.

Paul and Scott welcome Joey to Mentally Unscripted in this episode. They have a great conversation covering a range of topics including the following:

• Scientific self-improvement,
• Imposter syndrome,
• Marketing,
• Authority and credibility,
• Core fundamentals,
• Improving performance,
• Flow states, and
• How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Paul and Scott have known and followed Joey for some time. So, tune in for a lot of inciteful information.

Connect with Joey on Twitter.

Don’t forget, if you like this episode, tell your friends. And go to Apple Podcasts and leave us a 5-star rating and review. 

We appreciate you helping us get the word out!

Engage with us on Twitter. 

Scott

Paul

We’ve all battled procrastination at some point. Hell, you may be procrastinating by reading this right now (Don’t blame us. We didn’t force you to read this.) Indeed, for some of us, procrastination keeps us from achieving our goals.

The good news is that you can overcome it.

You can look procrastination in the eye and say, “No thanks, old friend. I’m done with you.” 

And Robert, aka Words & Minds, is the person to help you.

Paul and Scott welcome Robert to Mentally Unscripted in episode 28. They spend an hour talking about their experiences with procrastination and how they deal with it. 

Robert discusses many topics, including:

1. His experience with procrastination,
2. Mistakes he made in trying to tackle it,
3. The major impact procrastination has on people, and
4. His free procrastination e-book.

If procrastination is holding you back, this is the episode for you.

Connect with Robert and get a copy of his free e-book on Twitter.

Don’t forget, if you like this episode, tell your friends. And go to Apple Podcasts and leave us a 5-star rating and review.

We appreciate you helping us get the word out!
Engage with your Apollonian hosts on Twitter.

Scott

Paul

How Confirmation Bias and COVID Divided the World
Paul and Scott explain how confirmation bias and our need to be correct have divided the world over COVID.

Resources
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

DarkHorse Podcast (Brett Weinstein & Heather Heying has done many COVID related podcasts)

Tom Woods COVID Charts Quiz

Excess Deaths (from CDC)

Ivermectin & Aducanumab: Do They Work?

Interview with George Silverman

Confirmation Bias

Inertia (note: the equal and opposite reaction is Newton's third law of motion)

Incentives Matter

Probabilistic Thinking

Appeal to Authority

Sunk Cost Fallacy

False Dichotomy

Illusion of Control

Inversion

Top Takeaways
1.    Confirmation bias is our tendency to seek, interpret, and remember information that confirms our preexisting beliefs.

2.    Confirmation bias helps us avoid cognitive dissonance and gives us the comfort of thinking our beliefs are correct.

3.    Not understanding our belief systems about COVID and the confirmation bias that's powering those systems is a reason why COVID has become such a divisive issue.

4.    Understand that we all have biases, and we don't need to take absolute positions. Be open to the idea that you could be wrong.

Timestamps
[9:28] Today's Topic is Confirmation Bias and COVID.

[13:37] What is confirmation bias

[15:05] How confirmation bias works

[17:59] The Benefits of confirmation bias

[22:03] The communication aspect of confirmation bias

[25:14] The strength of your beliefs matter

[27:33] Belief systems in place in early 2020 at the start of COVID

[33:07] Problem of limited and too much information

[38:24] Is the government creating perverse incentives?

[41:05] Science vs. Non-Science

[47:09] Is it easier to ignore evidence and listen to authority?

[56:58] Tactics for dealing with confirmation bias.

If you enjoyed this podcast please share it. We appreciate you helping us get the word out!
Engage with your Apollonian hosts on Twitter.
Scott
Paul

Paul and Scott welcome Brandon Wark of Free State Colorado. Brandon talks about Free State Colorado and gives the inside scoop on some local politics. And Paul makes up a new word.

Resources
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

Free State Colorado

LewRockwell.com

Ludwig von Mises

Fredrik Hayak

Henry Hazlitt

Murray Rothbard

Confirmation Bias

Incentives Matter

Top Takeaways
1.    Free State Colorado’s goal is to promote a culture of liberty, individual freedom, and a free market with an emphasis on the state and local levels.

2.    Politicians aren’t as ideological as we think. Most of them only want to get elected and reelected.

3.    Special interest groups aren’t all bad. Good ones can act on behalf of politically underrepresented groups.

4.    People spend most of their time focusing on national politics. But the state, county, and local governments have greater influence over our lives.

5.    The best way to have a positive impact in your community is to show up and get involved. “Don’t wait until you get the bill in the mail.” – Brandon Wark

6.    Brandon’s strategy for communicating with people who have opinions different from his is to take time to get to know the person. He finds where they agree and builds from there to figure out how he can provide value to them.

7.    Make a human connection with others. You can still engage with people even if your politics differ.

Timestamps

[0:29] Brandon’s background.

[02:06] How Brandon got involved with politics.

[04:55] How the sausage is made, what most surprised Brandon about politicians.

[06:30] Incentives matter. Do politicians only care about getting elected and re-elected?

[08:07] How do we get special interests out of politics? Do we want them out?

[11:34] The Westminster, CO water issue

[16:50] How much of a role does political ideology play at the local government level?

[21:15] Truth is separate from what it takes to get elected.

[26:04] How Brandon came to believe in liberty.

[34:21] Brandon’s strategy for having productive interactions with people who don’t agree with him.

[37:47] Information overload.

[40:25] What Brandon learned over the last year.

[42:05] Brandon’s perfect world.

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In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott talk about using disconfirming evidence and falsifiability to overcome confirmation bias.

Resources
Confirmation Bias: Why Your Decisions Suck and You Fight With Your Friends

Use Disconfirming Evidence to Make Your Decisions Suck Less

Judgment in Managerial Decision Making

Probabilistic Thinking

Top Takeaways
1.    Humans tend to look only for confirming evidence. But often we need disconfirming evidence to find the correct solution to a question.

2.    Disconfirming evidence is better to use when examining a belief because it uses deductive logic instead of inductive logic.

3.    Understanding the risk posed by COVID is complicated by the lack of unfiltered, scientific data that gives a level-headed view of the situation.

Timestamps
[0:00] Discussion of Idiocracy – is it fiction or a documentary?

[4:42] What is confirming and disconfirming evidence?

[7:07] A study demonstrating the value of disconfirming evidence.

[10:56] People tend to avoid using disconfirming evidence because it takes more resources than seeking out confirming information.

[13:08] Falsifiability, the problem of induction, and deductive reasoning.

[18:03] Unfalsifiable claims may still be true. We just can’t falsify them.

[21:18] Applying disconfirming evidence and falsifiability to COVID.

[21:32] The debate over using masks to protect against COVID’s spread

[25:32] One factor complicating an analysis is that people aren’t good at assessing risk.

[28:35] Statistics are unreliable because they are difficult to measure and driven by incentives other than public health.

[35:05] As a population, we need to ask better questions and be literate in the concept of falsifiability.

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In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott welcome Myron Weber of the Mental Supermodels podcast. 

In his day job, Myron Weber is the founder of Northwood Advisors, helping clients solve interesting data problems at the core of their business. He is also the cohost of Mental Supermodels, a podcast exploring the theory and practice, the art and science of mental modeling for problem-solving and decision making.

Note: The first episode of Mental Supermodels season 2 is now available. You can find it at Mental Supermodels and on your favorite podcast player.

Myron’s Links:

• Mental Supermodels
• Northwoods Advisors
• Myron on LinkedIn

Other Resources:

• Mentally Unscripted with George Silverman
• Mentally Unscripted with Brandon Wark
• Mentally Unscripted with Wisdom & Strategy

Top Takeaways

1. Mental modeling is simply the discipline of seeking to understand systems in a structured way so that when you act with intention, you increase the likelihood of achieving your desired outcome.
2. People don’t all think the same way. Mental models are a natural way to think for some but not others. We can still use them to bridge the gap with people who don’t think like us or who disagree on important topics.
3. We all benefit from thinking in mental models. We all use them in our professional and personal lives, but we may not know it.
4. We can use mental models to manage our anxiety so we can think clearly.
5. Decentralizing your information sources and avoiding other people’s algorithms (OPA) can help manage information overload.

Timestamps
[2:30] Myron talks about Mental Supermodels season 1.
[5:21] Myron’s mental models aha moment.
[7:54] What is a mental model?
[13:31] Mental models can help you manage your anxiety so you can think clearly.
[16:05] Are mental models flawed because they lack an action component?
[19:56] People can benefit from thinking in mental models more.
[22:29] How we can use mental models to manage information overload – decentralization and OPA.
[32:48] How Myron’s restricted information intake affects his interactions with others.
[34:30] Your engagement level should depend on whether your information is global, national, or local.
[37:28] Using mental models to improve your communication with others.
[39:57] Going meta.
[40:49] What you say vs. how you say it.
[42:26] Question everything.

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In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott talk about the mental models that we can use to make better decisions in our foreign policy with a focus on military conflict.

Resources

• Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan, by Scott Horton
• TK News, by Matt Taibbi
• The Afghanistan Papers
• U.S. Military Pollution, US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries
• Incentives matter
• Begin with the end in mind
• Baselines
• Occam’s Razor
• Framing
• Moral Foundations Theory
• Risk assessment & cost/benefit analysis
• Opportunity costs
• Inertia
• Reversibility
• Disconfirming Evidence
• Bayesian Casino
• Optimism Bias
• Sunk Cost Fallacy
• Shifting Goalposts
• Priming
• Seeing the Front / The Map is Not the Territory
• Base Rates

Top Takeaways

• Mental Models can help clarify complex situations plagued with conflicting information, lack of an objective, and competing interests.
• Our moral foundation may differ from that of another person or group of people. No one has the blanket authority to impose their morality on others.
• Misaligned incentives and hubris combine to create a no-win situation.
• In any case, we must make sure we’ve accurately defined the problem. Then we must seek out the optimal solution for solving that problem.
• Decisions have tradeoffs that we must consider.

Timestamps
[0:20] Introduction.

[1:15] Did the U.S. fail in Afghanistan? Was the only failure for some interested parties that they couldn’t keep the war going?

[3:51] Military as a business.

[5:42] Why we invaded Afghanistan.

[7:01] Did the U.S. have an end in mind?

[9:11] Some models we can use when politicians and media tell us we need to consider armed conflict.

[13:04] Can we impose our morals on other cultures?

[18:21] The lesson is that we cannot and should not nation-build. Nation-building is a failed experiment.

[18:46] Cost/benefit analysis of invading the “Graveyard of Empires.”

[23:16] For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction and reversibility.

[26:49] Framework for rational decision making. Have we defined the problem correctly, and do we have the best solution for solving that problem?

[31:46] Bayesian casino. How much are you willing to bet on a given outcome happening?

[32:29] How over-optimism leads to bad decisions.

[35:28] Don’t keep going because of sunk costs.

[37:40] How shifting goalposts muddied the waters.

[38:55] Models for exiting 20 years of armed conflict.

[41:35] Did Biden make a mistake by not priming the U.S. for the difficulty in leaving Afghanistan?

[43:11] Logistics failures.

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In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott welcome Robert and Wiz back to the show. This time they cast their critical, and sometimes cynical, eye on the shady world of social media gurus. And of course, they have a little fun doing it.

Guest Links

• Robert on Twitter
• Wiz on Twitter
• Wiz’s website

Resources

• Mentally Unscripted Ep25 - A Conversation with Wisdom and Strategy
• Mentally Unscripted Ep28 - Killing Procrastination with Robert
• False Pattern Recognition
• Siddha Performance

Top Takeaways

• There is no shortage of people on social media touting themselves as gurus and wanting to take your money. If you want to learn about something, it makes sense to learn it from someone who’s done it before. But the Internet makes it easy for the gurus to make claims and harder for the rest of us to confirm the gurus are being truthful.
• Gurus try to sell you on an image. Either something you don’t have physically or psychologically.
• A lack of strong leadership and a sense of entitlement is leading to the growth of gurus with outrageous claims and the gullible people who keep the gurus in business.

Timestamps
[1:58] Where we found our first guru.

[5:52] Paul’s thoughts on Naval.

[8:13] Not all the social media gurus are shams.

[10:42] It comes down to the guru’s motivation. Do they want to help you or separate you from your money?

[11:53] There are other social media accounts dedicated to taking down the gurus. “Guru takedown porn,” according to Paul.

[13:15] The guru Ponzi scheme and selling the dream. There will never be a lack of predatory gurus and gullible people to keep them in business.

[19:30] Is it the problem they focus on or their method that makes the fake guru?

[20:46] Social media guru marketing.

[22:32] The consistency principle works in social media guru marketing too.

[24:03] More about exposing fake gurus.

[26:56] We justify our purchase because we spent money on them so we’ll convince ourselves we bought a worthwhile product. False pattern recognition can play a role in this.

[30:13] How to identify a false guru.

[32:07] How the fake gurus use the hero’s journey.

[33:42] What else you should look for?

[41:28] You get what you pay for.

[42:29] Good advice can morph into a parody of itself.

[46:07] The anti-guru.

[50:14] Why there are so many social media gurus.

[53:15] Finally, here’s your Bruce Lee fix.

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We’re also on Odysee (full episodes and clips).

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In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott review How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need, by Bill Gates.

Resources

• The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change
• Biden administration considers withholding funds and other measures to spur vaccinations
• Pfizer hikes 2021 outlook after vaccine boosts sales, profit
• Pfizer’s full FDA approval could lead to even greater profits
• We Are Living in a Climate Emergency, and We’re Going to Say So, Scientific American Colludes with Other Major Media to Normalize ‘Climate Emergency’ Terminology
• US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries
• Elizabeth Warren calls for a crackdown on 'environmentally wasteful cryptocurrencies' to fight the climate crisis
• Most COVID-19 hospitalizations due to four conditions
• CDC study finds about 78% of people hospitalized for Covid were overweight or obese
• Impossible and Beyond: How healthy are these meatless burgers?
• Vitamin D Insufficiency May Account for Almost Nine of Ten COVID-19 Deaths: Time to Act.
• CNN Director ADMITS Network Engaged in ‘Propaganda’ to Remove Trump from Presidency

Top Takeaways

• Gates assumes that climate change is real and that we can do something about it.
• We must get to net 0 carbon emissions by 2050. Gates' position is that avoiding a climate disaster will come through innovation, not from reducing our demand for energy. We must develop greener technologies to accommodate our energy demand.
• Neither Paul nor Scott will give up eating meat.

Engage with Scott and Paul on the Twitter.

We’re also on Odysee (full and clips).

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In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott welcome Robert and Wiz back to the show. This time, they take on the growing problem of poor leadership.

Guest Links

• Robert on Twitter
•  Wiz on Twitter
•  Wiz’s website

Resources

• Transcript of Pelosi Interview on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer
• Nancy Pelosi Blows Up at Wolf Blitzer Over Stimulus: You’re a Republican ‘Apologist’
•  Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections
• Comparing Natural and Vaccine Immunity
• The Freedom Cell Network
• RNC says it plans to sue Biden administration over federal vaccination mandate

Top Takeaways

• Leadership and management are different. Leadership is the ability to inspire people to achieve a common goal. Management is the allocation of resources to achieve a goal. One problem with leadership is thinking management and leadership are the same.
• Leadership requires more than technical expertise at a job. It requires trust, accountability, a definable goal, and a long-term focus for the success of the organization and its employees or members.
• People don’t want to step up and be a leader because the risk of failure is too high. A lack of community could be at the root of this failure.   

Timestamps
[01:40] What is leadership?

[10:41] Leadership requires accountability. Leaders focus on the long-term while managers are more short-term focused.

[13:09] Technical expertise at a position doesn’t make someone a good leader.

[15:10] Is offering 2 career tracks the answer to the problem of technical expertise not equaling leadership skill.

[17:19] Is there a lack of leadership in the world? Is the response to COVID-19 and the botched Afghanistan withdrawal two examples?

[25:42] Is Biden’s vaccine mandate an example of good leadership?

[33:00] A lack of trust can destroy a leader.

[33:51] Are these isolated incidents or part of a larger picture of widespread leadership failures? Is the failure in leadership a result of an incentive structure that doesn’t reward leadership? How much does the lack of community contribute?

[43:27] Where is the solution to our poor leadership going to come from?

[47:29] A leader must be able to articulate a goal before people will be inspired to act.

[52:18] It’s hard to lead people who you have contempt for.

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Scott was a guest on a recent episode of Unshackled Liberty where he talked to Q the Abolitionist and Crypto Gumbo about the increasing lack of communication in the world and the divisiveness it's causing.

Unshackled Liberty "is a libertarian variety show where we discuss the value of reducing the role of government in our daily lives. We have interviews and news from various sources and evaluate everything from the perspective of Christian Voluntaryism. We hope you stick around for a few episodes and enjoy the content."

Find Unshackled Liberty here and your favorite podcast app.

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We’re also on Odysee (full episodes and clips).

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What you don’t see is as important as what you do see. Opportunity costs, costs that you don’t see, lurk in every decision. In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott explain why missing those costs screws up your decision-making.

Resources

• TK News by Matt Taibi
• Aaron Mate
• How 'do your own research' hurts America's Covid response
• These four words are helping spread vaccine misinformation
• Lex Fridman Podcast #221 – Douglas Lenat
• You’ll Make Better Decisions When You Understand Opportunity Costs
• Confirmation Bias: Why your decisions suck and you fight with your friends
• Tradeoffs: The Currency of Decision Making
• How (Supposedly) Rational People Make Decisions
• America Doesn't Have Enough Hospital Beds To Fight the Coronavirus. Protectionist Health Care Regulations Are One Reason Why.
• How Many Hospital Beds?
• Why Melinda Gates Spends Time ‘Letting My Heart Break’
• “We Hadn’t Really Thought Through the Economic Impacts” ~ Melinda Gates
  
  

Top Takeaways

• Opportunity cost is the benefit we lose by choosing one option over another. It’s a second-order thinking technique that helps gives our decisions more context so we can make better, more informed decisions.
• We often fail to fully account for the costs of our choices because some of the costs are implicit, or unseen, costs. When we make decisions without accounting for those unseen costs, we’re making decisions with limited information.
• We have limited resources. It’s because of this scarcity that every decision we make has tradeoffs. We must somehow reconcile limited resources and unlimited wants.
  
  

 How do you increase your effectiveness as a manager and a leader not only to benefit your organization but to improve your career? Jeremy Thomas, the cohost of Mental Supermodels, joins Paul and Scott to discuss the mental models that will improve your career and personal interactions.

And, yes, there really is a Mortal Kombat mental model.

Resources

* Mental Supermodels

* Email Jeremy at jthomas@northwoodadvisors.com 

* Ep32 – More About Mental Models With Myron Weber of the Mental Supermodels Podcast

* Ep24 - A Conversation with George Silverman (MindSkills Creator)

* Ep35 – Will Bill Gates’ Prescription for Avoiding a Climate Disaster Give Too Much Power to the Government?

Top Takeaways 

* Mental models will make a big impact when you use them with intentionality. The goal in using them is to make better decisions more quickly.

*  Jeremy’s core mental models for managers and leaders are: 

* Communicate with intention, 

* Start with the end in mind, and

* Seek out value.

* Figuring out different ways to use the above 3 mental models in combination will have the biggest impact on your life and career. 

* The inverse method is a useful mental model to improve communication with others.

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We’re also on Odysee (full episodes and clips).

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Paul and Scott welcome Jamie Cain to Mentally Unscripted episode 40. Not only does this episode feature three incredibly manly beards, but it also includes an excellent conversation about anarchism and voluntaryism. And Paul tries to get in touch with his emotions . . . but they were screening their calls.Resources 

* Liberty Uninterrupted (podcast) 

* Liberty Uninterrupted (Instagram) 

* Liberty Uninterrupted (Odysee) 

* Liberty Uninterrupted (Youtube) 

* No Kings Coalition 

* Murray Rothbard 

* Lysander Spooner 

* Matt Kibbe 

* Don’t Hurt People and Don’t Take Their Stuff: A Libertarian Manifesto 

* The non-aggression principle 

* Don’t Go Down the Rabbit Hole 

* Mentally Unscripted Episode 15 - The NYT Approach to Fighting Inaccurate Information is Problematic 

* How 'do your own research' hurts America's Covid response 

* These four words are helping spread vaccine misinformation  

Top Takeaways  

* Most people think of anarchy as Mad Max-style chaos, but anarchy is a state where hierarchies exist without institutional violence forcing people to live under specific rules. Voluntaryism is a term to describe anarchism without negative connotations. Fear of chaos is keeping people from moving toward a voluntaryist/anarchist society.  

* Anarchism is a way to keep a group of people from building up into a corrupt power structure that uses violence to increase its power.  

* A voluntaryist/anarchist society requires a high level of personal responsibility. Force and coercion are immoral, so all human interactions should be voluntary.  

* Drone bombing an innocent family is not an excusable mistake. If it’s wrong for the individual, it’s wrong for the state. In a voluntary society, people are accountable for their actions.  

* The non-aggression principle (NAP) is the idea that we shouldn’t hurt people or take their stuff. 

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We’re also on Odysee (full episodes and clips).

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Is a system based on individual ability or achievement ruining society by creating a feeling of hubris in society's winners and resentment in its losers? In Mentally Unscripted episode 41, Paul and Scott review The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good? by Michael J. Sandel. In that book, the author claims that a merit-based system is destroying the common good. 

Resources 

* The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good? 

* Meritocracy: A system in which advancement is based on individual ability or achievement. 

* Does America Hate the "Poorly Educated"? by Matt Taibi 

Mental Models 

* Confirmation bias 

* Disconfirming evidence 

* Error of induction

* Inversion

* False dichotomy

Top Takeaways  

* According to the author, western society is struggling because our culture of meritocracy is destroying the common good. Those who succeed have a sense of hubris and look down on those who are less successful, and the less successful resent those who succeed. Resentment against the elites is causing a rise in populism. 

* On the other hand, aristocracies are less prone to hubris and resentment because people understand that their success is attributable to luck. 

* The common good requires society to balance justice, goodness, and progress.  

* The author's argument is weak because he doesn't take disconfirming evidence into account in his analysis, and he focuses almost exclusively on language from politicians to prove his point.  

Engage with Scott and Paul on the Twitter thought control machine. 

We’re also on Odysee (full episodes and clips). 

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Myron and Jeremy from Mental Supermodels join Scott and Paul to discuss decentralization and the big questions facing us in the future. What is decentralization? Will we continue moving toward a decentralized world and what will that world look like? What are the factors holding back our move to decentralization and how we can drive mass adoption of the decentralized tomorrow?

Resources

* Mental Supermodels

* Myron Weber LinkedIn

* Jeremy Thomas

* Northwood Advisors

Mental Models

* Economies of Scale

* Safety vs. Ease of Use

* Regulatory Capture

Top Takeaways 

* Twentieth-century technologies were centralizing. Twenty-first century technology is decentralizing. 

* Decentralization can take many forms from geography to capital.

* We’re accustomed to hierarchical thinking. Decentralization breaks down barriers created by hierarchical systems and pushes control down to the lowest levels of the system. But the entities at the top of the hierarchy may be hesitant to surrender control. At the bottom, people may be fearful of having to take on the additional responsibility of decentralization.

* Decentralization can have profound effects on most aspects of our lives from how we work and live to how we communicate to how our morals shape our view of the world.

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We’re also on Odysee (full episodes and clips).

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How to have thrilling conversations on blistering hot topics without fighting…

It’s easier than you think.

Download How to Never Argue Again (Unless you Want To) at Mentally Unscripted and discover the secret “Go Meta” approach that makes any topic fair game.

It’s totally free (for now) and worth hundreds in therapy.

Cheers!

Our intention at Mentally Unscripted is to bring you better tools to improve your engagement with others. It’s not an easy task in 2021, where Tribalism and media-driven polarization make having productive conversations even harder. 

That’s why we’ve put together How to Never Argue Again (Unless You Want To), a free guide to help you have better conversations that don’t end with hurt feelings and lost relationships. To get it, go to Mentally Unscripted and sign up for our email list. 

Resources 

* How to Stop Fearing the Decentralized Tomorrow (crossover with Mental Supermodels) 

* How Confirmation Bias and COVID Divided the World 

* A Conversation with George Silverman (MindSkills Creator) 

* Go Meta or Go Home (George Silverman Medium article) 

* The Mentally Unscripted Origin Story: Why Paul lacks a soul and Scott hates the man 

Mental Models 

* False Consensus Effect: Our tendency to overestimate how much others share our opinions. 

Top Takeaways  

* Having a passion for something is good, but we can’t let it push us into having angry arguments. 

* Good arguments are reasoned discussions that help you share and learn new ideas. They don’t start with a conclusion then seek out facts. They seek out facts then make a judgment. 

* We all have blind spots (confirmation bias). By being aware of them, we can improve our discourse. 

* Go meta to help manage discussions and improve them. 

Engage with Scott and Paul on the Twitter thought control machine. 

We’re also on Odysee (full episodes and clips). 

Follow Scott at Strength and Reason and on DESO. 

How to have thrilling conversations on blistering hot topics without fighting… 

It’s easier than you think. 

Download How to Never Argue Again (Unless you Want To) at Mentally Unscripted and discover the secret “Go Meta” approach that makes any topic fair game. 

It’s totally free (for now) and worth hundreds in therapy.  

Cheers! 

There’s a lot of talk about President Joe Biden’s announced COVID-19 vaccination requirements for employees of private businesses but there’s been little talk of whether he has the authority to do so. In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott welcome Patrick MacFarlane of Liberty Weekly and the Libertarian Institute to discuss the legal issues of Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Resources 

* Liberty Weekly 

* Liberty Weekly at the Libertarian Institute 

* The Libertarian Institute 

* Antiwar.com 

* The Propaganda Report 

* Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905) 

* Mentally Unscripted Ep40 – Anarchy, Chaos, and Emergent Order with Jamie Cain

* Popular sovereignty 

* What Does ‘Constitutional Interpretation’ Mean, Anyway? 

* Informed consent 

* Jerry W. Canterbury, Appellant, v. William Thornton Spence and the Washington Hospital Center, a Body Corporate, Appellees, 464 F.2d 772 (D.C. Cir. 1963)

* FOIA'd CDC Emails: Our Definition of Vaccine is "Problematic", from ZeroHedge 

* COVID-19: Wisconsin Deaths shows 4 deaths in the 0-19 age groups (checked on 11/15/2021)

* Trading in Congress: The Most Popular Stocks Owned by Congress 

* Tenth Amendment Center 

* Fully Informed Jury Association 

* The Scott Horton Show 

* Conflicts of Interest 

* Around the Empire

Mental Models 

* False Consensus Effect: Our tendency to overestimate how much others share our opinions.

* When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail

* Base rates

* Panic/fear states

* Illusion of control

* Inertia

* Define your terms

* Cost/benefit analysis

* Chilling effect

* Institutional capture

* Cognitive dissonance

Top Takeaways

* Claims that the Jacobson v. Massachusetts case establishes a legal precedent for compulsory COVID-19 vaccine are incorrect.

* In a truly deadly situation, compulsory vaccination wouldn’t be necessary because people would voluntarily take it.

* The theory of popular sovereignty, or the idea that government is based on the consent of the people, means that the government has only the powers granted to it by the Constitution.

* A doctor who performs a procedure without obtaining your informed consent is committing battery against the patient.

* Our legal system proceeds on the presumption of constitutionality.

* It’s problematic when we don’t or can’t ask what reasonable assessments have been done to warrant compulsory vaccinations. How much does the law take this question into account when deciding the legality of mandating vaccines?

Engage with Scott and Paul on the Twitter thought control machine. 

We’re also on Odysee (full episodes and clips). 

Follow Scott at Strength and Reason and on DESO. 

How to have thrilling conversations on blistering hot topics without fighting… 

It’s easier than you think. 

Download How to Never Argue Again (Unless you Want To) at Mentally Unscripted and discover the secret “Go Meta” approach that makes any topic fair game. 

It’s totally free (for now) and worth hundreds in therapy.  

Cheers!

Today’s guest is Sara Causey, the owner of Causey Consulting LLC and host of the Causey Consulting podcast. Sara’s experience consulting with firms of all sizes on their recruiting and staffing needs puts her in the unique position to see how COVID and our response to it are changing the nature of how we work.  

Sara has excellent insights into our changing attitude towards work, from our desire to escape cubicle zombie nation to organizational insecurities that lead to micromanaging employees. Her advice will help you shape a career that will take you to the upper levels of your field with confidence, integrity, and nobility.  

If 2020 and 2021 have you questioning the nature of how you earn a living, this is a must-listen episode.  

Sara is friendly, engaging, and blunt, so we had an excellent time talking to her. 

Resources 

* Causey Consulting 

* Causey Consulting Blog and Podcast 

* Toxic Positivity 

* Toxic Positivity, Part 2 

* Breaking Toxic Patterns 

* “I Just Couldn’t Get Over It…” (Sara discussed toxic positivity a bit more in this episode) 

* Toxic Optimism & #Blessed 

* The Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus 

Mental Models 

* The Observer Effect 

* Results oriented vs process oriented 

* Toxic positivity & toxic optimism 

* Probabilistic thinking  

Top Takeaways 

* The workforce today is more empowered than it has been in years. Our response to COVID-19 has made employers and employees realize that everyone doesn’t need to be packed into an office to work effectively. One of the downsides for the employer, and arguably an advantage for the employee, is the employer has to learn to trust its employees. 

* Some employers don’t want to give up micromanaging their employees. As a result, they try to construct a digital panopticon to control their employees no matter where they are working. But good employees are savvy and won’t tolerate such monitoring. 

* The observer effect can cause employees to underperform because of the anxiety of thinking their being watched. 

* Freelancing websites can offer benefits for people who are just getting started in a freelancing career, but they lose their advantages as people gain experience. 

* Don’t be afraid to fire a bad client. Establish the rules of engagement upfront, and don’t be scared to cut ties with any client who doesn’t respect them. 

* We must accept that life won’t turn out the way we want. Toxic positivity and toxic optimism can prevent us from preparing for the inevitable bad day. We can’t “cheat the system.” 

Engage with Scott and Paul on the Twitter thought control machine. 

We’re also on Odysee (full episodes and clips). 

Follow Scott at Strength and Reason and on DESO. 

How to have thrilling conversations on blistering hot topics without fighting… 

It’s easier than you think. 

Download How to Never Argue Again (Unless you Want To) at Mentally Unscripted and discover the secret “Go Meta” approach that makes any topic fair game. 

It’s totally free (for now) and worth hundreds in therapy.  

Cheers! 

In today’s episode, we explore some exciting topics. We start off by talking about the muddied world of tribal thinking and then discuss how tribal thought often overrides the concepts of authority and credibility.

That line of thought then carries us into the concept of financialization. Here we ask how a focus on stock price maximization has turned many American companies from global innovators into financial zombies. Then we revisit the idea of meritocracy and explore a new way of thinking about the concept of privilege. We close the episode with more talk about value and the NFT space.

This episode is an exciting ride where we started with a topic and saw where it takes us. Sit back and enjoy it.

As always, we want to build a community around Mentally Unscripted. So share this episode with your friends and interact with us at MentallyUnscripted.com.

And remember, the process you follow to reach a conclusion is more important than the conclusion itself.

Resources

* The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

* Elizabeth Warren Oil Company Tweet

* Modern Monetary Theory

* Here’s What You Need to Know About The Deficit Myth

* MMT #2 - Has MMT Won the Fiscal Policy Debate?

* Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt

* Basic Economics: ACitizen'ss Guide to the Economy, by Thomas Sowell

* Joe Biden accused of falling asleep during Cop26 climate summit speeches

* Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, by Seth Godin

* Vampires at the Gate?

* No, We Shouldn't Bail Out Boeing

* Inside the $2.5 Trillion Debt Binge That Has Taken S&P Titans Including Boeing and AT&T from Blue Chips to Near Junk

* The 2021 Forbes 400 List Of Richest Americans: Facts And Figures

Mental Models

* Second-Order Consequences

* Appeal to authority

* Authority & Credibility

* The concept of two realities

* First, do no harm

* Incentives matter

Top Takeaways

* Tribalism has led us to judge credibility based on who the person is and what team they’re on. This leads to appeals to authority and forgetting to ask the critical question of how much credibility the authority has. Does each tribe live in its own reality and have those realities reach a point where they can’t mix? And do we give authorities a pass when they’re members of our tribe?

* It’s a fallacy to think that the policies of the U.S. Government, the most significant, most powerful government in history, don’t impact our economy.

* We’ve become more focused on financial incentives rather than creating value to improve the world.

* We think about success in terms of a single generation, and doing so raises many questions about privilege. But what is privilege exactly, and how much do we need to think about. And does our view of privilege change if we look at success as a slow and steady multi-generational process rather than a meteoric, single-generation rise from rags to riches?

* NFTs are a new product many in the crypto world think is the next big thing. But is there any value in NFTs, and from where does the value come?

Engage with Scott and Paul on the Twitter thought control machine.

We’re also on Odysee (full episodes and clips).

Follow Scott at Strength and Reason and on DESO.

How to have thrilling conversations on blistering hot topics without fighting…

It’s easier than you think.

Download How to Never Argue Again (Unless you Want To) at Mentally Unscripted and discover the secret “Go Meta” approach that makes any topic fair game.

It’s totally FREE (for now) and worth hundreds in therapy.

Cheers!

In today's episode, we explore more exciting topics. From a story about a man with a fake arm trying to get a vaccine in Italy, we discuss what the end game for COVID-19 looks like and whether the people and organizations at the top of the world's hierarchies have a clear picture of the public health, economic, and financial landscape.

We also explore our shifting paradigms. It's no longer left vs. right or communist vs. capitalist. Instead, the events surrounding COVID-19 are waking people up to a new way of looking at the world, and those entrenched in positions of power and influence want to prevent us from changing our perspective.

Finally, we have an exciting discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of Bitcoin maximalism in terms of generalization versus specialization.

This episode was an exciting ride where we started with a topic and saw where it takes us. So, please sit back and enjoy it.

As always, we want to build a community around Mentally Unscripted. So, share this episode with your friends and interact with us at MentallyUnscripted.com.

And remember, the conclusion you reach is less important than the process you follow to get there.

Resources

* Mental Update #1, the Mentally Unscripted Newsletter.

* Liberty Uninterrupted Ep 064 – Rebuking the State ft. Scott Grayson of Mentally Unscripted

* In our Thinking Outside the Box news:

* Man in Italy uses fake silicone arm to try to get vaccine certificate

* Man uses fake arm to get vaccine certificate in Italy Jami Ganz - Saturday

* Matt Taibi on Joe Rogan

* Where Good Ideas Come from: The Natural History of Innovation, Stephen Johnson

* Qiao Wang is hiring tweet

* Elon Musk 66 years from first controlled, powered flight to landing on the moon tweet

* A Beginner's Guide to Decentralized Autonomous Organizations

* Muneeb.btc tweet

* Mentally Unscripted Ep30 - Brandon Wark of Free State Colorado - Why the Future Belongs to Those Who Participate

Mental Models

* Begin with the end in mind

* Garbage in, garbage out

* When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail

* Immediate results vs remote results

* Transparency vs. black box

* Recency bias

* Opportunity costs/tradeoffs

* State of denial

* The best way to combat a bad idea is with a good idea

* Capture

* Audience

* Regulatory

* Unintended consequences

* Second-level thinking

* Open systems vs. Closed systems

* Specialization vs. Generalization

* High stakes decisions

* Open-Mindedness / Lattice Work of Mental Models lead to Innovation

* Tribalism - Costs of going against your tribe

* Fragility

* Marginal utility

* Complexity invites regulatory capture

* Tradeoffs

* Sunk Costs

* Skin in the game

* Simplify complex ideas

* Feynman Learning Technique

Top Takeaways

* Recency bias and propaganda make us believe the government can solve everything, but we must accept that it can't. We must learn to live with some things. It's not clear that our leaders have a clear end goal in mind regarding our COVID-19 response.

* Traditional media outlets are closed systems that only offer a narrow range of disagreement. They're seeing a danger from decentralized media and open-system media.

* The way governments, businesses, and individuals react to situations is changing. We're moving away from traditional left/right, capitalism/communism dichotomies to centralized/decentralized or open systems/closed systems.

* Generalists have more resilience than specialists. In the case of crypto, generalization is superior to specialization (maximalization) in the current world environment.

Engage with Scott and Stefan on the Twitter thought control machine and the Mentally Unscripted Substack.

We're also on Odysee.

Follow Scott at Strength and Reason and on DESO.

Here’s How to have stimulating conversations on blistering hot topics without fighting.

It's easier than you think.

Download How to Never Argue Again (Unless you Want To) at Mentally Unscripted and discover the secret "Go Meta" approach that makes any topic fair game.

It's FREE (for now) and worth hundreds in therapy.

Cheers!

Podcast theme music by Transistor.fm. Learn how to start a podcast here.

In today's episode, Myron Weber from Mental Supermodels joins us a fascinating discussion on whether democracy is, to borrow a phrase from Marx, "the opiate of the masses," that's dulling our awareness that the United States is becoming less constitutional, less federal, and less republican. And by republican, we mean the form of government, not the political party.  

We had a great discussion that will give you a lot to think about regarding democracy and the direction in which the U.S. is heading.  

As always, we want to build a community around Mentally Unscripted. So, share this episode with your friends and interact with us at MentallyUnscripted.com.  

And remember, the conclusion you reach is less important than the process you follow to get there. 

About Myron 

Myron Weber leads the Northwood Advisors team to design and deliver high ROI solutions to business needs: 

* Solving complex business data problems in operations, sales, and marketing. 

* BI and Data Warehouse design and development. 

* Building custom applications to fill gaps not covered by enterprise systems. 

 Connect with Myron on LinkedIn or learn more at www.NorthwoodAdvisors.com 

You can also listen to Myron on Mental Supermodels. He and his co-host, Jeremy, explore the theory and practice, the art and science of mental modeling for problem-solving and decision making in business and life. 

You can listen to Mental Supermodels on all major podcast platforms. 

Resources 

* Winston Churchill preposition quote (as Myron mentioned, this quote is disputed but it’s still good) 

* What Does ‘Constitutional Interpretation’ Mean, Anyway?, by Scott Grayson 

* Popular Sovereignty, Judicial Supremacy, and the American Revolution: Why the Judiciary Cannot be the Final Arbiter of Constitutions, by William J. Watkins, Jr. 

* The Myth of the Rule of Law, by John Hasnas 

* Aristotle’s Philosophy of Government 

* Aristotle: Politics 

* Aristotle’s Idea of A Good State 

* Aristotle on Democracy and Government 

* Classification of Government According to Aristotle 

* The Brion McClanahan Show 

* Democracy, the God that Failed, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe 

* FACT: Big Media and Big Tech Stole the 2020 Election 

* Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari 

* Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) 

* A Beginner's Guide to Decentralized Autonomous Organizations 

Mental Models 

* Making distinctions 

* False dichotomy 

* Inherent flaws/Fatal flaw 

* Economic Calculation Problem 

* Structural thinking 

* Analogical thinking 

* High stakes & reversibility 

* Root cause analysis 

* Incentives matter 

Top Takeaways 

* The distinction between whether the U.S. is a republic or a democracy is a false dichotomy. Democracy describes the nature of voting, while republic refers to the extent to which public policy reflects the will of the voters.  

* The built-in mechanisms for government in the U.S. are the Constitution, federalism, republicanism, and democracy. Over time, the bureaucratic and intelligence state became another mechanism for the government that wasn't intended by the founders. Democracy is the opiate of the masses that hides the diminishing role the Constitution, federalism, and republicanism play in our current system of government.  

* There is a large group of unelected bureaucrats that exert a lot of control over the day-to-day life of the citizenry. 

* The power and money involved in government distort democracy by turning elections into high-stakes contests that incentivize power-hungry people to do anything necessary to win office. 

Engage with Scott and Stefan on the Twitter thought control machine and the Mentally Unscripted Substack. 

We're also on Odysee. 

Follow Scott at Strength and Reason and on DESO. 

Here’s How to have stimulating conversations on blistering hot topics without fighting. 

It's easier than you think. 

Download How to Never Argue Again (Unless you Want To) at Mentally Unscripted and discover the secret "Go Meta" approach that makes any topic fair game. 

It's FREE (for now) and worth hundreds in therapy.  

Cheers! 

Podcast theme music by Transistor.fm. Learn how to start a podcast here. 

Disclaimer: None of the people featured on this episode of Mentally Unscripted are doctors. The information provided is for informational purposes only and is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice. 

In today's episode, fitness coach Ben Moore joins Stefan and me. We had a fantastic conversation about sleep, nutrition, and exercise. These "3 Rocks," as Ben calls them, form the foundation of an optimal life.  

Ben is articulate and possesses knowledge well beyond his age. You'll enjoy this conversation as much as Stefan and I.   

As always, we want to build a community around Mentally Unscripted. So, share this episode with your friends and interact with us at MentallyUnscripted.com.   

And remember, the conclusion you reach is less important than the process you follow to get there. 

About Ben 

* Instagram 

* Twitter 

* The Level Up Library 

Resources 

* American Medical Association language guide says drop terms like “morbid obesity,” “alcoholic,” and “fairness” 

* American Medical Association Cancels ‘Morbid Obesity,’ ‘Inmates,’ ‘Homeless’ 

* How to Write Creative Fiction: Umberto Eco’s Four Rules 

* Hormesis (Getting Stronger) 

* Hormesis (Science Direct) 

* Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams , by Matthew Walker 

* The Joe Rogan Experience, ##1109 – Matthew Walker 

* A New Integrative Model of the Self 

* How To Stop Buying S**t Food 

* Mentally Unscripted Ep27 - Joey Psypreneur Interview 

Mental Models 

* Inertia 

* Short-term vs. Long-term focus 

* 1 step back for 2 steps forward 

* Pivot 

* Meaningful discomfort/hormesis 

* Tradeoffs  

* Knowledge --> Practice positive feedback loop 

* Routine & Structure 

* Entropy 

Top Takeaways 

* The goal to improve your life is to make a lasting change. 

* When you do something for a long time, it becomes part of your identity. It takes overcoming your ego to gain the self-awareness to know when you must change. Starting over with something new requires the willingness to take a step back. We can’t let inertia carry us forward to an unfulfilled life. 

* A lack of reflection leads people to repeat the same mistakes. 

* We should prioritize health and fitness at all ages, not only when we’re older.  

* People need adversity to grow and become stronger. We’re too focused on making people comfortable when we should be focused on overcoming “negative energy.” 

* Health is simple but not easy. Gaining the needed knowledge is easy but having the required discipline to put that knowledge into practice is a challenge for most people.  

* Getting adequate sleep is an easy way to improve your performance. 

* Sleep, nutrition, and exercise are the 3 big rocks that make up the foundation for our health. There aren’t any shortcuts on these. 

* Your mental diet is as important as your physical diet. 

Engage with Scott and Stefan on the Twitter thought control machine and the Mentally Unscripted Substack. 

We're also on Odysee. 

Follow Scott at Strength and Reason and on DESO. 

Here’s how to have stimulating conversations on blistering hot topics without fighting. 

It's easier than you think. 

Download How to Never Argue Again (Unless you Want To) at Mentally Unscripted and discover the secret "Go Meta" approach that makes any topic fair game. 

It's FREE (for now) and worth hundreds in therapy.  

Cheers! 

Podcast theme music by Transistor.fm. Learn how to start a podcast here. 

In this episode, Stefan and I look back at 2021 to identify the tools and insights that helped us most in the last year. We limited our review to five each, so we missed many things we could have included. But we think this list is a fun and informative tool anyone can use to have a better 2022.

As always, we’re building want to build a community around Mentally Unscripted. So, share this episode with your friends and interact with us at MentallyUnscripted.com. 

And remember, the conclusion you reach is less important than the process you follow to get there.

Resources

* Obsidian

* How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers, by Sönke Ahrens

* Where Good Ideas Come from: The Natural History of Innovation, by Steven Johnson

* Substack

* The Myth of the Rule of Law, by John Hasnas

* The Anarchist Handbook, by Michael Malice

* Anarchy and the Law: The Political Economy of Choice, by Edward P. Stringham

* Vokes v. Arthur Murray, Inc. (Scott incorrectly referred to this case as the Fred Astair case in the podcast)

* Mentally Unscripted Ep42 – How to Stop Fearing the Decentralized Tomorrow (crossover with Mental Supermodels)

* Reactance

* When Safety Proves Dangerous (Farnam Street)

* New to KT Tape?

* Mentally Unscripted Ep48 – Is Democracy the Opiate of the Masses? with Myron Weber

* Mentally Unscripted Ep33 - Hubris and Misaligned Incentives: Mental Models in a Time of War

Mental Models

* Reactance

* Learn how to learn

* Risk assessment

* Base rates

* Asking the best questions

* Paradox of safety

* Start with the end in mind

* Institutional capture

* Incentives

* Crisis of competence

* Accountability

* Self-preservation

Top Takeaways

* Obsidian is a tool that can take your note-taking to the next level.

* Substack is a good tool for sharing content such as articles, podcasts, and newsletters. The Mentally Unscripted Substack page is the hub of the Mentally Unscripted empire.

* The rule of law is the principle that we are a nation of laws, not of men so that all people are subject to the same laws. But this principle is a myth.

* Reactance is the reaction to rules, regulations, etc. that threaten or eliminate specific freedoms.

* Base rates are an important technique to help us assess risk.

* How you go about learning something is an important aspect of learning.

* We are witnessing a crisis of competence across institutions where they are unable to execute their most basic functions.

Comments or Questions on this episode? Join the conversation at the Mentally Unscripted Substack.

Engage with Stefan on the Twitter thought control machine.

Scott has jumped on the Gettr bandwagon and is also on DeSo and Instagram. He rants and raves on his blog, Strength and Reason.

We're also on Odysee. Rumble is coming as soon as Scott gets off his butt and uploads the podcasts.

Here’s how to have stimulating conversations on blistering hot topics without fighting.

It's easier than you think.

Download How to Never Argue Again (Unless you Want To) at Mentally Unscripted and discover the secret "Go Meta" approach that makes any topic fair game.

It's FREE (for now) and worth hundreds in therapy.

Cheers!

Podcast theme music by Transistor.fm. Learn how to start a podcast here.

In this episode, Stefan and I welcome Eric Chow to Mentally Unscripted. Eric is the host of The Eric Chow Empowers Podcast where he interviews people who have powerful stories of overcoming adversity.

Eric is an intelligent, caring person. He shares with us his strategies for gaining the trust of people who are often uncomfortable sharing their stories. We discuss the importance of rapport and preparation. We also talk about how Eric knows when to push harder during an interview and when to let up. It’s an excellent conversation for anyone wanting to know more about drawing difficult stories out of people.

As always, we’re building a community around Mentally Unscripted. So, share this episode with your friends and interact with us at MentallyUnscripted.com. 

And remember, the conclusion you reach is less important than the process you follow to get there.

Guest Information

* The Eric Chow Empowers Podcast

* Eric’s Twitter

Resources

* Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari

* Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

* Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.    

Mental Models

* Hanlon’s Razor

* The reptile brain

Top Takeaways

* Stories of overcoming adversities are some of the most memorable stories. Conversely, stories that lack sincerity and focus on getting attention for the storytelling instead of helping others are the least memorable.

* The first 10 to 15 minutes of the interview are key. During this time, the interviewer must get the storyteller relaxed and comfortable to build trust and rapport.

* Preparation is important for an interviewer to draw a deep, sincere story out of someone.

Comments or Questions on this episode? Join the conversation at the Mentally Unscripted Substack.

Engage with Stefan on the Twitter thought control machine.

Scott has jumped on the Gettr bandwagon and is also on DeSo and Instagram. He rants and raves on his blog, Strength and Reason.

We're also on Odysee. Rumble is coming as soon as Scott gets off his butt and uploads the podcasts.

Here’s how to have stimulating conversations on blistering hot topics without fighting.

It's easier than you think.

Download How to Never Argue Again (Unless you Want To) at Mentally Unscripted and discover the secret "Go Meta" approach that makes any topic fair game.

It's FREE (for now) and worth hundreds in therapy.

Cheers!

Podcast theme music by Transistor.fm. Learn how to start a podcast here.

Stefan found himself on the DL for this episode, so I went solo and tackled the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling in the OSHA vaccine mandate case and why it's not necessarily the primary victory, some claim.

I start the podcast by explaining administrative law and why an executive agency like OSHA can make laws despite the Constitution not granting law-making authority to the executive branch. I also briefly recap on how we got to this point in the vaccine mandate case and what's to come.

With the background material out the way, I give my thoughts on the well-publicized factual errors by some Justices and what they mean to the case.

I then dive a little deeper and explain that the issue in the OSHA case wasn't whether a government agency could mandate a vaccine for an estimated 85 million people. It was which level of government can do so, leaving out any contemplation that the individual is best positioned to make their healthcare choices.

Finally, I wade back into the discussion I started a few episodes ago about the rule of law and why the law is subjective.

This was my first solo-podcast episode. While it certainly has its warts, I enjoyed doing it and hope to bring a different perspective to the Supreme Court's ruling on the OSHA vaccine mandate.

As always, we're building a community around Mentally Unscripted. So, share this episode with your friends and interact with us at MentallyUnscripted.com.

And remember, the conclusion you reach is less important than the process you follow to get there.

Resources

* National Federation of Independent Business, et al., Applicants v. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, et al

Top Takeaways

* Justices bring their biases and outside facts into the cases the Supreme Court hears.

* The central question in the OSHA vaccine mandate case came down to which level of government can mandate a vaccine for 65 million people. None of the majority, concurring, or dissenting opinions contemplated individual liberty and letting the people make healthcare choices for themselves.

* Because language is vague, we must interpret laws. This reality means that law is subjective, not objective.

Comments or Questions on this episode? Join the conversation at the Mentally Unscripted Substack.

Engage with Stefan and Scott on the Twitter thought control machine.

Scott is also on Instagram and rants and raves on his blog, Strength and Reason.

Feel free to email him with questions, comments, or suggestions.

We're also on Odysee. Rumble is coming as soon as Scott gets off his butt and uploads the podcasts.

Here’s how to have stimulating conversations on blistering hot topics without fighting.

It's easier than you think.

Download How to Never Argue Again (Unless you Want To) at Mentally Unscripted and discover the secret "Go Meta" approach that makes any topic fair game.

It's FREE (for now) and worth hundreds in therapy.

Cheers!

Podcast theme music by Transistor.fm. Learn how to start a podcast here.

Stefan is still sidelined, so I’m again going solo to talk about judicial review. Justice Stephen Breyer announced his retirement, and we’re already starting to hear about possible replacements. So, get ready to listen to pundits talking about stare decisis and judicial activism.

In this episode, I will explain some of the significant theories of judicial review and explain why it doesn’t matter.

As always, we're building a community around Mentally Unscripted. So, share this episode with your friends and interact with us at MentallyUnscripted.com. 

And remember, the conclusion you reach is less important than the process you follow to get there. 

Resources

* What Does ‘Constitutional Interpretation’ Mean, Anyway?

Top Takeaways

* Will we ever be able to cut through the noise and agree on the COVID situation? We likely won’t ever reach a level where we have separated the bare facts about COVID from the fiction, let alone agree on what those facts mean when viewed through our individual moral lens. And that’s okay as long as we arrive at our own personal truth honestly.

* OSHA withdrew its vaccine mandate, which is good news, but it’s not necessarily the last time we’ll hear about it.

* The U.S. Supreme Court isn’t a collection of unbiased legal scholars coldly reviewing constitutional questions when it comes down to it. The justices are as free to bend to their morals as any of us. Theories of Constitutional interpretation aren’t hard and fast rules the justices must apply but are often a mechanism for justifying decisions after the fact.

Comments or Questions on this episode? Join the conversation at the Mentally Unscripted Substack.

Engage with Stefan and Scott on the Twitter thought control machine.

Scott is also on Instagram and rants and raves on his blog, Strength and Reason.

Feel free to email him with questions, comments, or suggestions.

We're also on Odysee. Rumble is coming as soon as Scott gets off his butt and uploads the podcasts.

Here’s how to have stimulating conversations on blistering hot topics without fighting.

It's easier than you think.

Download How to Never Argue Again (Unless you Want To) at Mentally Unscripted and discover the secret "Go Meta" approach that makes any topic fair game.

It's FREE (for now) and worth hundreds in therapy.

Cheers!

Stefan is back this week, so you’re spared another week of Scott’s implacable droning.

In Episode 47, Stefan and Scott recorded a short segment on Bitcoin Maximalism. Their friends Myron and Jeremy of Mental Supermodels recently released an episode that built on those initial insights.

Today, Stefan and Scott returned the favor by adding their thoughts to Myron and Jeremy's. They define Bitcoin Maximalism then discuss its advantages and disadvantages and whether it's the best philosophy for realizing Bitcoin's promise of self-sovereignty.

As always, we're building a community around Mentally Unscripted. So, share this episode with your friends and interact with us at MentallyUnscripted.com.

And remember, the conclusion you reach is less important than the process you follow to get there.

Resources

* Mental Supermodels Episode 17. Maximalism: response to Mentally Unscripted

* The Fight For Bitcoin: Water’s Warm Maximalism

* Mike Lindell Claims Banks Want to Cut Ties With Him Over 'Reputation Risk'

* The 'Make Bitcoin Legal Tender' Momentum Grows

* SWIFT and the Weaponization of the U.S. Dollar

* Up Only

Top Takeaways

* A 3-level framework for slotting maximalists into your information architecture is based on openness to new ideas

* Convictionalist: A strong, actively pursued opinion but is open to other ideas.

* Maximalist: A strong opinion and is unwilling to change.

* Toxic Maximalist: A strong opinion and actively puts down other views.

* Self-sovereignty is crypto’s great promise. Can we do that with only Bitcoin or do we need other blockchain technologies playing in the same sandbox?

* What does the game theory around Bitcoin look like? If we focus solely on Bitcoin, are we opening ourselves up to a government or other central authority exerting control over the network?

* Bitcoin is criticized for not innovating fast enough but it’s moving at the speed needed to meet current demands.

Comments or Questions on this episode? Join the conversation at the Mentally Unscripted Substack.

Engage with Stefan and Scott on the Twitter thought control machine.

Scott is also on Instagram and rants and raves on his blog, Strength and Reason.

Feel free to email him with questions, comments, or suggestions.

We're also on Odysee. Rumble is coming as soon as Scott gets off his butt and uploads the podcasts.

Here’s how to have stimulating conversations on blistering hot topics without fighting.

It's easier than you think.

Download How to Never Argue Again (Unless you Want To) at Mentally Unscripted and discover the secret "Go Meta" approach that makes any topic fair game.

It's FREE (for now) and worth hundreds in therapy.

Cheers!

This week, Stefan and Scott welcome Stephan Kinsella to Mentally Unscripted.

Stephan is a brilliant, articulate libertarian legal scholar who explains why the mainstream notion that intellectual property spurs innovation is wrong. He dives in by telling us why IP laws are simply government-issued monopolies that actually impede innovation. He explains why removing IP laws would make us more prosperous. And closes by discussing other innovative ways creators can profit without protectionist laws.

As always, we're building a community around Mentally Unscripted. So, share this episode with your friends and interact with us at MentallyUnscripted.com.

And remember, the conclusion you reach is less important than the process you follow to get there.

Guest Information

* Stephan’s Website

* Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Libertarian Theory and Applications

* Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom

Top Takeaways

* Intellectual Property (IP) is a body of law whose stated purpose is to protect a specific type of private property, such as inventions and creative works but is really a grant of monopoly power by the state.

* Instead of spurring innovation and creativity, the monopolistic nature of IP laws stifles new creative output.

* IP laws could be repealed today, and entrepreneurs would fill the void with new, innovative ways to earn money from their creations.

Comments or Questions on this episode? Join the conversation at the Mentally Unscripted Substack.

Engage with Stefan and Scott on the Twitter thought control machine.

Scott is also on Instagram and rants and raves on his blog, Strength and Reason.

Feel free to email him with questions, comments, or suggestions.

We're also on Odysee. Rumble is coming as soon as Scott gets off his butt and uploads the podcasts.

Here’s how to have stimulating conversations on blistering hot topics without fighting.

It's easier than you think.

Download How to Never Argue Again (Unless you Want To) at Mentally Unscripted and discover the secret "Go Meta" approach that makes any topic fair game.

It's FREE (for now) and worth hundreds in therapy.

Cheers!

Note: We discuss investing, finance, and money in this episode. It’s simply four guys talking and no one should construe anything in this episode as investment, financial, money, legal, or any other kind of advice. By the way, Myron is not Satoshi . . . or is he?

This week, Stefan and Scott welcome back Myron and Jeremy of Mental Supermodels. This time we hash out our beginner experiences with cryptocurrencies. We cover how our thinking has evolved from our first forays into the world of digital currencies to where we stand today. This episode touches on investment philosophies, hits and misses in crypto, and mental models we use when dipping a toe in this dynamic and often times confusing world.

As always, we're building a community around Mentally Unscripted. So, share this episode with your friends and interact with us at MentallyUnscripted.com.

And remember, the conclusion you reach is less important than the process you follow to get there.

Guest Information

* Mental Supermodels

* Myron Weber LinkedIn

* Jeremy Thomas LinkedIn

* Northwood Advisors

Resources

* Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?

* The Byzantine Generals Problem

* The Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice, and Application of the Next Internet Technology, by William Mougayar

* Andreas M. Antonopoulos, The Bitcoin & Open Blockchain Expert

* Ukraine Legalizes Bitcoin (BTC) and Cryptocurrencies

* Russian Ministry proposes to legalize and tax Bitcoin mining

* Is It Possible To Have A Quantum Resistant Cryptocurrency?

* Mochimo – Quantum Resistant Cryptocurrency Review

* Pros and cons of dollar-cost averaging

* PlanB @100trillionUSD

* Mental Supermodels Ep 1: Boundaries and the 6 Stages

Top Takeaways

* Fear of missing out or letting your emotions drive you into a market often leads to losses. Having a model or strategy in place to sidestep emotional decisions is a must for all investors.

* The crypto culture is a driving force to achieving self-sovereignty. The community driven ecosystem surrounding crypto has attracted innovative people.

* Crypto’s value is in bringing value to the end consumer by cutting out the middleman.

* Because you have success at something once doesn’t mean you’re an expert.

* Beware of authority without credibility.

Comments or Questions on this episode? Join the conversation at the Mentally Unscripted Substack.

Engage with Stefan and Scott on the Twitter thought control machine.

Scott is also on Instagram and rants and raves on his blog, Strength and Reason.

Feel free to email him with questions, comments, or suggestions.

We're also on Odysee. Rumble is coming as soon as Scott gets off his butt and uploads the podcasts.

Here’s how to have stimulating conversations on blistering hot topics without fighting.

It's easier than you think.

Download How to Never Argue Again (Unless you Want To) at Mentally Unscripted and discover the secret "Go Meta" approach that makes any topic fair game.

It's FREE (for now) and worth hundreds in therapy.

Cheers!

This week, Stefan and Scott wade back into current events to talk about the war between Russia and Ukraine. But, unlike seemingly everyone on social media, we aren't here to tell you what to think. Instead, we give you some tools to analyze the deluge of information and reach your own, honest conclusion.

Is Putin a madman hellbent on nuking the world, or is Ukraine's friendliness towards the west threatened Russia's security? After listening to this episode, you won't need Twidiots to tell you what to think. You'll learn to use models such as probabilistic thinking, circle of competence, and reversibility, to decide for yourself.

As always, we're building a community around Mentally Unscripted. So, share this episode with your friends and interact with us at MentallyUnscripted.com.

And remember, the conclusion you reach is less important than the process you follow to get there.

Resources

* TK News by Matt Taibi

* Wag the Dog

* Glenn Greenwald Substack

* “When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.” ― Frederic Bastiat

Mental Models

* Pick your trusted sources

* Probabilistic thinking

* Heuristics

* Long-Tail Risks

* Past performance is not a predictor of future performance

* Don’t let a good crisis go to waste

* Incentives matter

* Circle of competence

* Accountability

* Reversibility

* Second-order consequences

* Compound decisions

* Decision nexus

* Short-term vs long-term thinking

* Competency crisis

Top Takeaways

* We need to learn how to navigate through an information war.

* Heuristics are useful shortcuts or rules of thumb to help us make decisions. To use them effectively, you must understand when your heuristics are wrong.

* We don’t need to consider every last bit of information. Our models must, however, incorporate the information most critical to reaching a strong conclusion.

Comments or Questions on this episode? Join the conversation at the Mentally Unscripted Substack.Engage with Stefan and Scott on the Twitter thought control machine. Scott is also on Instagram and rants and raves on his blog, Strength and Reason.Feel free to email him with questions, comments, or suggestions.We're also on Odysee. Rumble is coming as soon as Scott gets off his butt and uploads the podcasts.