This is Your Brain on Bullsh*t - David Pinsof

David Pinsof is a research scientist at UCLA, co-creator of Cards Against Humanity, and an author. Everything is bullshit. Your opinions, your arguments, even your thoughts. Most of it’s manufactured, borrowed, or absorbed without question. So if all that’s fake, what’s real? And if we can’t trust our own minds, or anyone else’s, what can we trust? Expect to learn how we can use incentives more efficiently and how to look at incentives more accurately, if other-thinking and worrying is complete bullshit, why we have opinions, and if our preferences are just even more bullshit, why arguing is bullshit, why most arguments are actually pseudo arguments, why so much advice mostly bullshit and why we take it and why we give it, and much more… - 0:00 Is Happiness Bulls**t? 7:48 Incentives are Key to Human Behaviour 12:33 Why Do We Have Opinions? 19:36 Exposing the Status Game 35:08 Are Opinions a Way to Test Loyalty? 40:50 How Does Arguing Relate to Opinions? 46:44 What’s the Difference Between an Argument and a Pseudo-Argument? 52:43 What is a Deepity? 01:01:14 The Differences Between Vague Bulls**t and Deep Bulls**t 01:08:18 Find Out More About David - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Chris WilliamsonhostDavid Pinsofguest

Aug 14, 20251h 9mWatch on YouTube ↗

EPISODE INFO

Released: August 14, 2025
Duration: 1h 9m
Channel: Modern Wisdom
Watch on YouTube: ▶ Open ↗

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

David Pinsof is a research scientist at UCLA, co-creator of Cards Against Humanity, and an author. Everything is bullshit. Your opinions, your arguments, even your thoughts. Most of it’s manufactured, borrowed, or absorbed without question. So if all that’s fake, what’s real? And if we can’t trust our own minds, or anyone else’s, what can we trust? Expect to learn how we can use incentives more efficiently and how to look at incentives more accurately, if other-thinking and worrying is complete bullshit, why we have opinions, and if our preferences are just even more bullshit, why arguing is bullshit, why most arguments are actually pseudo arguments, why so much advice mostly bullshit and why we take it and why we give it, and much more… - 0:00 Is Happiness Bulls**t? 7:48 Incentives are Key to Human Behaviour 12:33 Why Do We Have Opinions? 19:36 Exposing the Status Game 35:08 Are Opinions a Way to Test Loyalty? 40:50 How Does Arguing Relate to Opinions? 46:44 What’s the Difference Between an Argument and a Pseudo-Argument? 52:43 What is a Deepity? 01:01:14 The Differences Between Vague Bulls**t and Deep Bulls**t 01:08:18 Find Out More About David - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

SPEAKERS

Chris Williamson
host
David Pinsof
guest

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Modern Wisdom, featuring Chris Williamson and David Pinsof, This is Your Brain on Bullsh*t - David Pinsof explores why Happiness, Opinions, And Arguments Are All Strategic Bullshit David Pinsof argues that human behavior is not driven by a pursuit of happiness or inner states, but by evolution-shaped incentives like status, sex, food, and group belonging. Happiness, he claims, is a recalibration mechanism triggered by positive prediction errors, not a motivational carrot, which explains habituation and addiction. He then reframes opinions and arguments as status-seeking tools used to fight over social norms, often covertly rather than to seek truth. Along the way, he explains concepts like vague bullshit, deepities, and pseudo-arguments, tying them to our evolved social brains and the status games that shape culture and discourse.

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