Made You Think is BACK! In this episode of the podcast, Nat and Neil catch up after a year and a half hiatus. Their plan was to catch up on what’s been going on, but that didn’t happen as they ended up talking a lot about COVID, the economy, politics, some books they’d read, and a whole lot more.

We cover a wide range of topics, including:

The rise of Tiktok and Twitter
Media coverage and confirmation bias
Cargo cult science and research in the Health field
How COVID has affected the workplace
Our take on schools reopening

And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to stay tuned for future episodes!

Links from the Episode

Mentioned in the show

Oatly Article (18:15)
Subreddit: Not the Onion (46:06)
Cargo cult science (59:03)
ALS (1:08:09)
Right To Try Law (1:10:34)
Uyghur Muslims (1:20:46)
Operation Mockingbird (1:23:00)
Wealth Disparity (1:32:11)
Airtable (1:43:26)
Zapier (1:43:27)
Roam Research (1:43:50) (Nat's Blog Post)
Notion (1:44:00)

Books mentioned

Infinite Jest (4:08) (Book episode)
Discipline & Punish (5:26) (Book episode)
The Denial of Death (5:41) (Book episode)
Hiroshima Diary (5:45) (Book episode)
Atlas Shrugged (11:02) (Book episode)
You Are A Badass (12:42)
Outliers (12:44)
How to Lie with Statistics (50:22)
Scale (1:44:58)

People mentioned

Kanye West (5:26) (Album Notes)
Dan Carlin (9:58)
Jen Sincero (12:42)
Mark Manson (13:32)
Jeff Nobbs (19:03)
David Perell (22:13)
Steve Jobs (26:38)
Sam Harris (40:20) The Riddle of the Gun (Book episode)
Donald Trump (51:29)
Nancy Pelosi (51:30)
Richard Feynman (59:06)

Show Topics

3:05 - Nat and Neil catch up and reflect on past podcast episodes. How like-minded people have connected over Made You Think (MYT) podcast with nearly 250,000 downloads. The future of MYT and what listeners can expect from the podcast.

9:28 - Podcasts as well as other forms of media have evolved in what it takes to be successful and keep their audience interested. Between making things ‘pop’ and sticking to their roots, authors and artists alike need to balance making money and doing the work they want to do.

14:12 - The rise of popularity in Twitter and Tiktok in both regular users and those looking to earn. Discussions of other social media platforms and how they have evolved in popularity.

19:33 - The price of being an influencer: receiving more criticism over the Internet, nearly everything you say can be taken out of context, internal battles with your mindset. Having a large following can come with downsides, but there are ways you can respond that are helpful and productive.

27:26 - Recognizing what people are trying to get from critical comments or responses. How to respond, diffuse, or block out the incoming negativity on social media. It’s easy to think they’re coming at you from a place of dislike, when it could be for attention, for conversation, or for clarification on a topic.

32:24 - What’s real vs. what’s not? Social media can easily distort our senses about what is going on. Covid, riots, media coverage and confirmation bias. We are quick to discard information that doesn’t match the beliefs of ideas that we support. It’s important to recognize the bias in order to have the discussion.

40:02 - Stereotypes. Media can paint the picture that a certain idea is contained in an idea set, and if you believe one idea from the set, you believe all within the set. Overlap between ideas are assumed

43:05 - Mask usage during the Covid times. The term ‘anti-masker’. Different states have different laws regarding masks. As of August 10, Wisconsin’s state agency requires employees to wear masks even on Zoom calls

45:58 - With all that’s happening in the world, especially the year of 2020, it’s almost laughable we can’t tell real news from fake news. What institutions can we trust with the most up-to-date news?

50:15 - False information: fault of the media and those in positions of authority, or fault of the people? We want to be able to trust what we read and hear without needing to fact check everything.

55:25 - Health and nutrition research studies. The samples, methods, biases, and why those make a difference in the results of the study. Trials and results often only published when it is in your favor or confirm what it is that you wanted to prove.

59:10 - Richard Feynman’s speech on the dangers of cargo cult science. Feynman’s tells of a tribal society who often received supplies and materials from an airplane during war times. They tried to re-attain these goods by creating imitation runway landings and bamboo radio antennas. Although they were doing all the preparation work to receive the supplies, they did not understand why it didn’t come. Science that lacks integrity, although looks “scientific” is what we call cargo cult science.

1:02:55 - Link between science and marketing. Funding a study that will produce results in your favor to appear more credible and support your message. Hydroxychloroquine and it’s supposed ability to treat Covid topic attracting strong opinions on social media, to the form of bot usage.

1:07:40 - Drug approvals and Right to Try law. Drug companies need to pass phase 3 testing to receive support from insurance companies, and also most report results from treatments of patients from the Right to Try law. Often times with those patients being extremely sick given their only option is to shell out the money without the help of insurance, it could hurt the chances of drug approvals.

1:13:57 - The rate at which the vaccine for Covid is coming vs. treatments for other diseases. There is the ‘hype’ element behind Covid mixed with the way lifestyle has been impacted by the virus that has pushed up the need to find a vaccine for it quickly.

1:17:58 - North Korea: Covid cases in Korea, the death hoax of Kim Jong-un, and North Korean wine.

1:20:01 - Number of cases in the U.S. and how we are perceived by other countries. Uighur concentration camps in China. Propaganda and distrust of media. What is propaganda within our country being spread and being exported out of the country? We have seen a lot of propaganda both for and against Trump during his presidency, that accelerated the distrust of media.

1:23:00 - Operation Mockingbird. While some of the information surrounding Operation Mockingbird is unconfirmed, it’s interesting to read into these theories regarding operations to eavesdrop on journalists, alleged CIA operations to manipulate news media for propaganda purposes, etc.

1:27:11 - Fearful mentality within our country stemming from the upcoming election, riots, protesting, and lingering worry from Covid.

1:30:02 - Reopening schools debate is becoming very politically charged. Not to mention the food distribution that schools provide. With families staying home, and many families disproportionately being affected by Covid, the question becomes how will they be able to physically attend their jobs while the children are home, and provide the extra 2 meals per day that the schools were supplying?

1:32:11 - Wealth disparity. The large companies are benefitting from the downfall of their smaller competitors from the decline of consumer demand due to Covid. Other companies with an online presence saw a boost in business as good and services moved online. The debate whether companies will stay remote long after the virus to lower company costs.

1:39:27 - With work moving online, this brings the option of hiring workers from overseas that’s lower in cost relative to the U.S. Cost of being an employee vs. employer.

1:42:22 - Tools for automation.

1:44:55 - Scale by Jeffrey West is the book used for the next podcast episode. Stay tuned for future episodes. We are happy to be back!

We're back with an off-topic episode of Made You Think after almost a year and a half hiatus. The plan was to catch up on what's been going on, but that didn't happen and we ended up talking a lot about COVID, the economy, politics, some books we'd read, and a whole lot more.

If you've missed us or are new to the pod, this is a great way to dive back in before our next real episode which should be out in a week or two.

62: We're Back! A Catchup Episode Full of Tangents

Made You Think