Wisdom

"the ability of the Democrats to sustain a gigantic multi-year hoax with lots of moving parts, they can absolutely do that. And we've seen it now multiple times."

Large political groups can successfully maintain complex, multi-year false narratives, and we've seen it happen repeatedly.

"If there are a couple of ways to go on any topic, he picks the one that's the strongest."

When multiple options exist on any issue, Trump consistently selects the strongest, most assertive path available.

"How did the endangered plants do during the fire? Isn't a fire worse than building?"

If a wildfire didn't wipe out the endangered plants, why block rebuilding on the grounds that construction would harm them?

"It's not like bales of marijuana. You could put it in your pocket enough to kill a city."

Fentanyl is so potent that a pocket-sized amount holds enough to overdose an entire city, unlike bulky drugs such as marijuana.

"If you say Trump did one thing bad, people would discount it. But if you say he did this and this and this and this and this, people assume there’s truth in there because there’s so much smoke there must be fire. But that’s not the case. That’s just laundry list persuasion."

A single accusation is easy to dismiss, but a long list of them creates the illusion of fire from all the smoke, leading people to assume at least some must be true—even if every claim is weak or baseless. This is laundry list persuasion.

"Fairness is not something you want. You want meritocracy. That's not fairness because some people have more merit. Some people will thrive in a meritocracy, some people won't. It's not exactly fair but it's just a good system for everyone."

Don't pursue fairness; pursue meritocracy. It won't feel fair since talent and output aren't equal, but it delivers the best outcomes for society overall.

"The richest people, especially the AI billionaires, they need to do something that's highly visible but also good for the public."

The ultra-wealthy should take on highly visible projects that deliver genuine public benefit.

"I've been skeptical about the power of science and how much might be fraudulent. I've been skeptical for a long time but not this skeptical. I mean, I've just fallen off a ledge in terms of trusting science."

My longstanding skepticism about scientific reliability has reached a breaking point; recent discoveries have caused my trust in the field to collapse.

"Now we know that at least half of all scientific studies are not reproducible. We watched the pandemic pervert science like we didn't think was possible."

At least half of scientific studies cannot be reproduced, and the pandemic revealed ways science can be corrupted that were previously unimaginable.

"Healthy people are doing more of everything. So if you had great health and great vitality and great energy, wouldn't you do literally more of everything compared to people who are not healthy? So I can see why healthy people would volunteer more. They'd just be able to do it. It might be true, but it certainly would work the other way."

Healthy, energetic people naturally participate in far more activities overall—including volunteering—which means the link between volunteering and longevity could easily run in the opposite direction from what many studies assume.

"People prefer lower quality news. But you know what the biggest question is? Who gets to decide what is low quality news? Low quality news according to who?"

Claims that people prefer 'low quality news' immediately raise the question of who decides what counts as low quality; the label is entirely subjective and often biased.

"Do you think music training makes kids smarter or is it the smart kids who take music? Because it could work either way. Music lessons are less likely to make children smarter but more likely to reveal the curiosity and discipline they already have. I believe that."

Music training doesn't necessarily make children smarter. It may simply reveal the curiosity and discipline that smarter kids already have.

"If you suggest that somebody's taking a pill to make them hornier, they will tell you they got hornier because people like to be horny and they have no resistance to it. And that's half of hypnosis. Hypnosis works best when it's something that somebody wanted and they have no resistance to it."

People are extremely suggestible to improvements in areas they strongly desire with zero internal resistance, which is why open-label studies on sexual function are essentially worthless—they measure expectation more than reality.

"The credibility of the study would be approximately zero. But yet, if you knew somebody who needed some extra sexual function and you gave them the pill and you told them it would work, it might actually work just psychologically and that would be good enough."

Even a bogus study can be useful: the placebo effect triggered by confident suggestion often delivers real benefits for outcomes people desperately want.

"It worked in a mouse. Do you know what are the odds it will work in a human if it works in a mouse? Not much."

Promising results in mice rarely translate to humans, so treat such news as entertainment rather than actionable information.

"The one thing that I'm sure of is that there's not a single thing in history that is exactly the way the history books tell us. I don't think any of it is real. Now, it might be real-ish and it might be directionally true and parts of it might be true, but I just don't really believe any of the stories we're told about history. Not completely."

No historical narrative is completely accurate. Even if directionally or partially true, the stories we're told about the past should not be fully believed.

"It's more about making sure it doesn't come back if you find anything that works. Anything that boosts your natural immunity is probably a good thing."

Effective cancer approaches focus more on prevention of recurrence than elimination. Anything that strengthens natural immunity is worth doing.

"I would advise you never get married and then go on the pill, because that's kind of sketchy. You might not be attracted to your husband anymore."

Avoid starting the contraceptive pill after marriage, as it can alter your attraction preferences and cause you to lose interest in your partner.

"the more you engage in social media, literally the dumber you get. You score lower on certain tasks of brain function."

Increased time spent on social media measurably reduces cognitive performance and makes you less intelligent over time.

"I'm not a billionaire, but if I were, I would be looking for some clever way to get the hell out of this state because I would not want to live in a state where they ever, even once, had a tax on assets. I already have property tax. That's bad enough. But there's 5% of everything you own."

If you were wealthy, you'd immediately plan to leave any state that imposes an asset tax, because once government starts taking a cut of everything you own, the precedent makes it unlivable.

"That would explain why Trump was not willing to do a deal with him, but rather simply telling him what the deal is. Here's the deal. You leave. But nope, that's the deal. You leave and you get nothing."

With someone who has broken every previous agreement, you stop negotiating compromises and simply dictate your terms with zero concessions offered.

"If you plan for sex as a couple in a committed relationship, you will end up having more sex than if you try to spontaneously have sex. Would it be as satisfying as unplanned spontaneous sex? No. But in a long-term relationship they've sort of gotten past the spontaneous part. You can't have that forever. So if you can plan it and have it, do it."

Couples in long-term relationships have more frequent sex when they schedule it ahead of time instead of waiting for spontaneous desire. Though less exciting than the unplanned version, it's a practical strategy once the honeymoon phase ends.

"People will tend to the average of their friends. So if you've got five friends who have a weight problem and you don't, well, there's a pretty good chance you're going to start drifting toward their weight. It makes sense. They're the people who influence you the most."

Your body weight is heavily shaped by the average weight of the people around you, especially close friends. Social influence pulls you toward their eating and lifestyle habits over time.

"Men who are in a family life situation have lower testosterone than when they're single. If you're spending time around small children, especially your own, you can actually feel your testosterone drop like a rock. Likewise, your testosterone will go up if you're winning competitions or giving a speech in front of a crowd."

Testosterone levels drop noticeably when men are in family mode around young children, but rise during competitive or high-status activities like winning or public speaking. These shifts are tangible and tied to your immediate role and environment.