Thank you Leigh Wagner PhD, RDN Ana-Maria Ignat-Berget, Rob Henderson, Emma KG - Ageing Psychologist and 100+ others for tuning into my live video with Will Storr! If you couldn’t attend, enjoy this 67 minute, high energy conversation on a variety of psychological topics.
Here is a partial platter of what spontaneously arose in our first conversation:
🎯 The Status Game: A Not-So-Hidden Mechanism Explaining Human Behavior
For now, forget smartphones (source) and loneliness epidemics (source) —Storr reveals the puppet master behind our mental health crisis, political polarization, and social media madness. This is the missing piece that explains why so many of us are so damn miserable despite living in unprecedented comfort.
⚡ Hyper-Localized Status Games
Storr's new concept will change how you see every social interaction forever. From college reunions to elevator rides, from picking music in the car to approaching attractive strangers at bars, you're constantly playing micro-status games you didn't even know existed. Once you see this pattern, you can't unsee it.
💥 The Virtue Signaling Shortcut Destroying Lives
While competence-based status takes years of grinding discipline, virtue-based status can be hijacked in minutes through social media. Storr exposes the dark psychology behind cancel culture, revealing how privileged individuals weaponize victimhood to climb social hierarchies—with devastating real-world consequences (including the tragic Caroline Flack story).
🧠 The Evolutionary Mismatch Messing With Your Lobes
Our brains evolved for tribes of 150 people and now we're competing with billions. Storr's jaw-dropping analysis of why we feel so insignificant in the modern world, told through one viscerally powerful paragraph about human pain (seriously, it gave me the chills).
🎭 The Connection vs. Status Paradox
Why psychology got it wrong by obsessing over "human connection" while ignoring our primal need for social rank. Don’t mix these two up.
🏆 Why Status Built Civilization
From yam-growing competitions in Polynesia requiring 12 men to modern AI races between tech titans, discover how our "shallow" status obsession drives humanity's greatest achievements. Even if it ramps up our social anxiety.
🎪 Unpersuadables: How "Rational" People Become Dogmatic Zealots
Storr's takedown of the New Atheist movement reveals how "rational" skeptics became just as dogmatic as the religious fundamentalists they mocked.
💎 The Writer's Dilemma: Truth vs. Sales
The brutal reality of modern publishing: Want to be a bestseller? Just tell people what they want to hear. Storr's Status Game was rejected by every American publisher because it challenged comfortable assumptions instead of picking sides.
Watch because this is a psychological awakening that will fundamentally change how you understand yourself and other people.
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