The Ledger, every show

“All of the nonsense about, I don't know, polyamory that are coming around. That's all Nonsense. And again, I mean, look, no judgment, different strokes, but look, I'm a behavioral scientist, and the truth of the matter is that we are built for pair-bond mating”

“There's a really interesting papers that we've seen recently, the dark triads, they're disproportionately social activists.”

“Do you like to post anonymously on the internet? Because the answer is yes, you're overwhelmingly likely to be talking to a dark triad. You're overwhelmingly likely to be talking to a pathological personality, somebody who really likes to stir up trouble and h…”

“And again, that's been largely overlooked by the therapy industrial complex that wants you to relive your trauma. No, no, no, no, no, no. You need to reframe and understand your trauma, understanding that you probably weren't the person who was suffering the m…”

“The loneliest people I ever meet are CEOs, the loneliest people I meet. And the reason is because it's all deal, no real. Because real friends take time and you don't, you're not compensated for it.”

“If you use AI as your therapist or your lover or your friend, It will leave you feeling empty, depressed, and anxious. That's the bottom line.”

“Happiness and unhappiness are not opposites. They're largely governed in different hemispheres of the brain, as a matter of fact. So to say, if I got rid of the screens and had fewer aggravations and mood disorders, I would be happier. That's wrong. You'd be l…”

“We find that non-religious people tend to be less happy than religious people because they don't think that there's something big and good and beautiful that, that, that lies in store for all of us if we live right”

“You know, the average, by the way, the average number of questions asked by a man on a first date, according to my colleague, Alison Woodbrooks at HBS? Zero. That's the average. That's the median number of questions asked by a man on a first date with a woman.”

“You find that people from about, you know, 25 to 32, that's the kind of the range where people are most likely to have successful relationships because they're a startup. They're not merging to fully formed lives and careers.”

“For example, if men over 30 who've never either cohabitated or been married, they have a one in three likelihood of a substance abuse disorder.”

“80% of the overtures toward men go to 10% of the male population, and those are not the right guys. Those are a lot of dark triads. The dark triads are the ones who show the best in every format, including in, in, in dating profiles.”

“So there's five things you can do with money. Okay. This is a very much a Cody Sanchez part of the conversation, isn't it? Number one, you can buy stuff, right? We've already talked about that. Number two, you can buy experiences. Number three, you can buy tim…”

“Over the past 20 years or so, women have converged downward to the unhappiness levels of men. So they've converged, and at first I thought, great, men are getting happier. Women are getting unhappier is what we find, and they're getting unhappier very quickly.”

“But what you've found is that over the past 20 years or so, women have converged downward to the unhappiness levels of men. So they've converged, and at first I thought, great, men are getting happier. Women are getting unhappier is what we find, and they're g…”

“The worst, most metastatically stupid idea in Western society, in American society is the bucket list. The bucket list is like, I'm going to make a list of all my cravings and attachments and desires, and I'm going to pour over it.”

“There are four idols that people chase in life. Money, power, pleasure, and honor, by which he meant fame, and which we mean prestige in life. Those are idols that never bring satisfaction. They run you in the wrong direction. If you want to be ambitious for t…”

“We have, the poverty rate has bounced around between 10 and 15% every year since then. Despite the fact that we spent somewhere around 20 trillion dollars in the war on poverty.”

“This blended, by the way, with the Great Recession in 2008, 2009, such that basically 80% of the income distribution, the bottom 80% has experienced zero economic growth.”

“It's rich people who've got your stuff, and both of those approaches are nonsense. Neither one of those approaches is legitimate”

“The people who believe in the inevitability of technological advance in all areas at all times, these are people who have basically decided that morality is not important.”

“One is enjoyment, which is not pleasure. It's pleasure plus people plus memory. It's, you know, pleasure doesn't lead you to happiness, The pursuit of pleasure leads you to rehab, but when you actually add people and memory to it, you transfer the experience o…”

“As a matter of fact, the best predictor of depression, anxiety, For young adults is the answer yes to the question. Does your life feel meaningless? That's the best predictor.”

“The problem wasn't the coronavirus. The problem is what we did about the coronavirus, which pulled people apart, left people in a very, very lonely state. It actually reoriented them toward the way that they self-soothe. People really started using their smart…”

“The left hemisphere of the brain solves complicated problems, which is problems that are, they're hard to solve, but with how to and what knowledge, you can solve them once and for all... The right side of the brain deals with complex problems. Complex problem…”

“What's happening in modern life with the hustle culture, the engineered culture that we live in, where the tip of the spear is the way and amount that we're using tech in our lives. Is pushing us to the left hemispheres of our brain, where we don't deal with, …”

“One of the things that screwed up universities in this country is that they had to weigh in on everything. And once you start doing that, you are going to get lobbied by every single thing coming down the street that you need to make a statement about somethin…”

“Free enterprise is the ultimate AI. It's the reason that the United States has this Insurance mechanism against despotism is because despots don't stand a chance against markets. That you can put in the dumbest policies in the world, and we will, the behemoth …”

“Depression has increased by about a factor of three for people under 30. Anxiety by about a factor of two.”

“That's one of the reasons that the happiest marriage is one of the characteristics is that they, that the partners get more religious across the decades together. They get more religious together, right?”

“People get religion all wrong, by the way. They think you have to, especially in the current generation, you have to feel something, and then you'll believe something, and then you'll practice something. That's exactly backwards when it comes to religion. Firs…”

“The average kid in America under 12 spends between four and seven minutes a day in, in, in nature, and between four and seven hours a day on screens.”

“Two-thirds of the guys Would prefer to shock themselves painfully. One guy shocked himself a 190 times in 15 minutes, had to be thrown out of the experiment for being a sick and twisted freak.”

“And fame, by the way, is the worst because fame is the only one of the goals that you can only ever be happy in spite of. And you have to, so most people who get famous, they become less happy because of the fame.”

“Watch the left side of people's faces when you're talking to them, and they will not be able to involuntarily control the activity. Slight twitches, a little bit more left face activity when they're experiencing negative emotions when you're talking to them.”

“The more that you're learning about yourself from therapy, the more likely it is to have a beneficial impact for the long term. When somebody just wants to solve your problems, Or give you hacks. Run the other way. That's just not very helpful. And it's certai…”

“And then when people hang around graduate school for long enough, their unhappiness starts to rise again.”

“Almost any euphoric that you use to change your consciousness is a neurotoxin and bad for you. You know, it makes you feel high. It's a neurotoxin. That's what it comes down to.”

“If you're a merger, one of the tells of being a merger is you have separate finances and that's a, not a good predictor of actually, of growing together”

“There was early data that turns out to not have been replicated very well, that men are happier when they're married than women are, that, that, that marriage is good for men, but it's not good for women. That's wrong. It's good for both.”

“Dating is not entertainment. Dating is auditioning. You're auditioning for the role of husband. And that means not very many second dates. Not very many second dates, because you know. Second dates are mostly entertainment.”

“You can compare people in countries over time. That's legit. I do that all the time. If we're looking at happiness trends inside populations, you can look at individuals all day long, but I don't compare countries. I don't think it's a, I don't think it's a le…”

“Fame is the only one of those you can only ever be happy in spite of.”

“Debt is terrible for happiness, except for mortgages. Because mortgages actually make a little bit more progress in owning your home than rent.”

“Work-life balance is complete nonsense because it suggests that work is not part of your life. There's a separation between your work and your life. Your work should be part of your life. That should be work-life integration.”

“What I found is that the free enterprise system properly understood is an expression of the generosity that we can bring. When we push it to the margins of society, there's no other force that can lift people out of poverty.”

“The people tend to be happiest and most prosperous when they have solid, stable families, and that really starts with, you know, mom and dad who are in love with each other.”

“American happiness has been falling for 30 years. Usually little by little by little because of the retreat from institutions like faith and family and friendship and, you know, the relationship with work.”