Category: Interviews

What kind of bigger-picture understanding can come with traveling to parts of the world and immersing yourself in the culture or activities, and connecting in-depth with locals? How can one’s internal confidence affect connection and physical linkage with others along the way? We cover these topics and more with attorney and world traveler Karin Lang on episode 358 of The Armen Show.

Whether it is going to a region of Europe, or a region of Southeast Asia, Karin tells us of some of the stories and takeaways of switching things up and heading to a place that calls you. When you have a calling that has a sense of urgency or immediacy to it, where another person does not have that same feel, it is up to you to reach for it. Karin has already done this in the travel category a few times, as we discuss on the show, and is on the way to more exploring of this type.

A later topic of discussion in our talk is related to confidence and self-esteem, which then links with our covering of sexual relations and what it takes to make the connection better or stronger for both participants. Though it can take place without such understanding, one person may be left out of the full experience that comes with physical connection, which isn’t a great way to leave things.

One clear link we speak of in this episode is that of our hard-hitting nature, which can rub some folks the wrong way, but does allow us to have an existence free of many niceties that are actually limiting constructs. Though few will be interested in having a life with a lot of directness and rougher moments, those who can handle those are set for some special times.

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How do we think about minds that are not human? How do we look at recent efforts in technology that have come out with platforms able to compete with humans on certain tasks? Science writer Philip C. Ball joins us on episode 357 of The Armen Show to discuss these topics from his book The Book of Minds: How to Understand Ourselves and Other Beings, from Animals to AI to Aliens.

“Philip Ball is a freelance science writer. He worked previously at Nature for over 20 years, first as an editor for physical sciences (for which his brief extended from biochemistry to quantum physics and materials science) and then as a Consultant Editor. His writings on science for the popular press have covered topical issues ranging from cosmology to the future of molecular biology.

Philip is the author of many popular books on science, including works on the nature of water, pattern formation in the natural world, colour in art, the science of social and political philosophy, the cognition of music, and physics in Nazi Germany. He has written widely on the interactions between art and science, and has delivered lectures to scientific and general audiences at venues ranging from the Victoria and Albert Museum (London) to the NASA Ames Research Center, London’s National Theatre and the London School of Economics.

Philip continues to write regularly for Nature. He has contributed to publications ranging from New Scientist to the New York Times, the Guardian, the Financial Times and New Statesman. He is a contributing editor of Prospect magazine (for which he writes a science blog), and also a columnist for Chemistry World, Nature Materials, and the Italian science magazine Sapere. He has broadcast on many occasions on radio and TV, and is a presenter of “Science Stories” on BBC Radio 4. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, sits on the editorial board of Chemistry World and Interdiscipinary Science Reviews, and is a board member of the RESOLV network on solvation science at the Ruhr University of Bochum.

Philip has a BA in Chemistry from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Physics from the University of Bristol.”

“Understanding the human mind and how it relates to the world that we experience has challenged philosophers for centuries. How then do we even begin to think about ‘minds’ that are not human? In recent decades, the mind – both human and otherwise – has been explored by scientists in fields ranging from zoology to astrobiology, computer science to neuroscience.

Taking a uniquely broad view of minds and where they might be found – including in plants, aliens, and God – The Book of Minds pulls these multidisciplinary pieces together. In so doing, it offers for the first time a unified way of thinking about what minds are and what they can do, arguing that in order to understand our own minds and imagine those of others, we need to move on from considering the human mind as a standard against which all others should be measured.”

Links: Personal Website | Philip’s Books | The Book of Minds on Amazon | Twitter

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You may have thought of the bond market as a relatively calm and uncompetitive location where the idea of getting big profits is not as common, but Bill Gross did not see it that way. In The Bond King: How One Man Made a Market, Built an Empire, and Lost It All, author Mary Childs takes us through his story of growth and scenarios along the way. She takes us through the story, and we also cover her Planet Money podcast, here on episode 356 of the show.

“From the host of NPR’s Planet Money, the deeply-investigated story of how one visionary, dogged investor changed American finance forever. Before Bill Gross was known among investors as the Bond King, he was a gambler. In 1966, a fresh college grad, he went to Vegas armed with his net worth ($200) and a knack for counting cards. $10,000 and countless casino bans later, he was hooked: so he enrolled in business school.

The Bond King is the story of how that whiz kid made American finance his casino. Over the course of decades, Bill Gross turned the sleepy bond market into a destabilized game of high risk, high reward; founded Pimco, one of today’s most powerful, secretive, and cutthroat investment firms; helped to reshape our financial system in the aftermath of the Great Recession—to his own advantage; and gained legions of admirers, and enemies, along the way. Like every American antihero, his ambition would also be his undoing.

To understand the winners and losers of today’s money game, journalist Mary Childs argues, is to understand the bond market—and to understand the bond market is to understand the Bond King.”

Mary Childs is an American financial journalist, and non-fiction writer. She is co-host for Planet Money. She graduated from Washington and Lee University. She reported for Barron’s, the Financial Times, and Bloomberg News.

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Welcome back guest Rebecca Faith Lawson to the show on episode 355, as we have a discussion live with the backdrop of the beach sands in place. We spoke here on Playa Del Rey Beach about the topics of authenticity, following your beliefs, not getting thrown off by others, perfectionist views, and more.

The topic of not taking in outside noise was interesting, as we have to be cautious of the input that we take in from the world. We only have one time around here to make our decisions, and don’t want to be thrown off by the external.

Rebecca models with Modern Muse Models in Florida, and also enjoys working with kids. It’s great for us to connect where we are built for, and to reach out from a base of what we are into.

Links: Instagram | Modern Muse Modeling

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Welcome to episode 354 of the show, live in person at Los Angeles Swim Week, which was having its first run-through in the LA area. Not only did we get to speak with art director and creative consultant Robby Devine on the show, but we had surprise guests Sydney Marcus and Amanda Clair join us late into the episode.

There is something great about the live episodes, and this one was no exception. We went into mindset, the value of giving people a full opportunity without having suspicions attached to it, and the idea of how things can grow when allowed to come from a mind of abundance.

Having attended various events that Robby has had important parts in, along with seeing his connective and warm ability in person, a talk like this is a delight for me, and we would be glad to have Robby (and our surprise guests) back on the show in the future.

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Attorney Jamie Susskind joins on episode 353 of the show, where we discuss his latest book The Digital Republic: On Freedom and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century.

Jamie Susskind is also author of the award-winning bestseller Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech (Oxford University Press, 2018), an Evening Standard and Prospect Book of the Year. Future Politics was awarded the 2019 Estoril Global Issues Distinguished Book Prize.

Jamie is an author and barrister. He has held fellowships at Cambridge and Harvard Universities, and at the Berggruen Institute. Jamie writes and speaks about technology, politics, and law.

His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Times, Wired, the Daily Telegraph, Fast Company, and the New Statesman.

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Joining us on episode 352 of the show is Dr. Mike Liu, founder of FreeFuse.

Dr. Liu has a Doctor of Philosophy in Materials Science and Engineering from Texas A&M University. He has done research on Additive Manufacturing of CoCrMo using Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS) to print compositional gradients and metal single structures. He also taught two polymer materials courses using Dream Forge 3D printer and AutoDesk Fusion 3D CAD modeling software.

“FreeFuse radically transforms the on-line video experience from passive consumption to user-directed exploration. FreeFuse videos are presented as a series of linked optional segments that can be viewed, re-viewed and re-organized in any sequence, at any time.”

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Professor Donald Hoffman, author of The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes, joins on episode 351 of the show.

Donald David Hoffman is an American cognitive psychologist and popular science author. He is a professor in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, with joint appointments in the Department of Philosophy, the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, and the School of Computer Science.

Hoffman studies consciousness, visual perception and evolutionary psychology using mathematical models and psychophysical experiments. His research subjects include facial attractiveness, the recognition of shape, the perception of motion and color, the evolution of perception, and the mind–body problem.

He has co-authored two technical books: Observer Mechanics: A Formal Theory of Perception (1989) offers a theory of consciousness and its relationship to physics; Automotive Lighting and Human Vision (2005) applies vision science to vehicle lighting. His book Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See (1998) presents the modern science of visual perception to a broad audience. His 2015 TED Talk, “Do we see reality as it is?” argues that our perceptions have evolved to hide reality from us.

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Juliana Schroeder is an award-winning professor in the Management of Organizations group at the Haas School of Business. She is a faculty affiliate in the Social Psychology Department, the Cognition Department, and the Center for Human-Compatible AI at UC Berkeley. She teaches the Negotiations and Conflict Resolution course at Haas. She joins me on episode 350 of the show, where we discuss various research topics from her articles.

Professor Juliana Schroeder is a behavioral scientist who studies the psychological processes by which people think about the minds of other people. Every day, people make attributions about others’ intellectual and emotional mental capacities. These attributions are consequential because they underlie decisions about how to interact with others, such as whether to help or harm them.

For instance, determining whether a negotiation partner is trustworthy affects a person’s willingness to concede. Determining whether an outgroup member is competent affects moral concern for their well-being. Juliana’s research uses experiments to understand how people make inferences about other minds, and to further test the consequences of their inferences.

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“Our brains are the most complex machines known to humankind, but they have an Achilles heel: the very molecules that allow us to exist can also sabotage our minds. Here are gripping accounts of unruly molecules and the diseases that form in their wake.” On episode 349 of The Armen Show, we have guest Dr. Sara Manning Peskin, author of “A Molecule Away from Madness: Tales of the Hijacked Brain”.

Dr. Sara Manning Peskin received her undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Harvard University, where she graduated magna cum laude prior to moving to Philadelphia. She received her doctor of medicine, along with a master’s degree in cellular and molecular biology, from the University of Pennsylvania. She went on to complete residency and fellowship in neurology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where she now works both in the Penn Memory Center and the Penn Frontotemporal Dementia Center.

She’s particularly interested in narrative medicine and teaching the lay public about neurologic afflictions. She has published work in The New York Times and The Boston Globe Magazine.

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What is the difference between a citizen and a consumer? How can we become more involved in our society than we currently are? On episode 348, Jon Alexander and Ariane Conrad of the book Citizens join to discuss this concept, as well as steps in the writing process, and being a support for a creative.

In 2014, Jon Alexander co-founded the New Citizenship Project with Irenie Ekkeshis, a former adland colleague. Their mission was to figure out how to use their skills not just to sell stuff to Consumers, but to involve people in the decisions that affect their lives as Citizens.

Working with Ariane Conrad, a best-selling writer who has built a career turning big ideas into books that change the world, Jon drew on all his experience with NCP, studied the best of what’s going on all over the world, and interrogated three Masters degrees-worth of knowledge to pull this together. He truly believes that we humans are collaborative, creative, caring Citizens by nature – and if we give ourselves and each other the chance, we can fix this.

Ariane Conrad is an editorial consultant and coach known as the Book Doula. She nurtures world-changing ideas and the people behind them. Together, they craft effective messages, strategies, and trajectories. Together, they write nonfiction books that are accessible and compelling.

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Is there an intimacy famine in place at this time? Are people short of touch and connection that is vital for a healthy life? Indeed, “millions of people around the world are not getting the physical, emotional, and intellectual intimacy they crave.” Behavior scientist Dr. Michelle Drouin joins on episode 347 of the show to cover topics in relation to this famine that is in place.

Dr. Michelle Drouin (B.A. Cornell University; Ph.D. University of Oxford) is a psychology professor, forensic consultant, expert witness, and internationally-recognized researcher and speaker on issues related to technology, relationships, couples, and sexuality, including issues related to addiction and partner violence. Dr. Drouin’s research has attracted international attention, and she regularly does interviews for television, radio, newspapers, and magazines.

She is Professor of Psychology at Purdue University-Fort Wayne and Senior Research Scientist at the Parkview Mirro Center for Research and Innovation.

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Singer, songwriter, and voiceover artist Christina Aguinaga joins on episode 346, recorded with a great backdrop of the greenery and mountains.

From her bio, “I’ve been using my voice for as long as I can remember. I grew up reading stories to my brother and sister, especially since we joined the reading program at the local library. I was introduced to Aesop’s Fables, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, the Poetry of Shel Silverstien, and so much more. It wasn’t long after that I started singing, dancing, and acting professionally in regional and dinner theater in Orange and Los Angeles County, California.

When I was a featured performer in the productions for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, I was influenced by the musicians on the cruise ships to start listening to all kinds of music. However, it was the mesmerizing combination of melodies and lyrics that captivated me most and perpetually altered my perspective. I wanted to share my own stories in that medium. Fortunately, I was encouraged to further my studies in songwriting, composition, and audio engineering so that I could write and record my own music. As a result, I went on to receive my BA in Music Technology from California State University, Dominguez Hills where I also completed my single subject teaching credential in music. I continue to teach private music lessons and provide my performance services for restaurants, country clubs, churches, private parties, and weddings in Southern California. I have also had a residency as a solo singer and pianist at the XIV Hakone Rikyu in Hakone, Japan. 

I started using my voice not only to speak about music, but about all the things that matter to me by providing voiceover, collaborating on copy, and writing commercial jingles for small businesses whose innovations consciously contribute to a happier, healthier, and more sustainable world.

The cauldron of my creativity is ever evolving.”

Here is a link to her home page.

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N. J. Enfield is a professor and the chair of linguistics at the University of Sydney, and a research associate in the Language and Cognition Group at the Max Planck Institute. He joins on episode 345, where we discuss his latest book Language Vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good for Lawyers and Bad for Scientists.

“Enfield offers a lively exploration of the science underlying the bugs and features of language. He examines the tenuous relationship between language and reality; details the array of effects language has on our memory, attention, and reasoning; and describes how these varied effects power narratives and storytelling as well as political spin and conspiracy theories. Why should we care what language is good for? Enfield, who has spent twenty years at the cutting edge of language research, argues that understanding how language works is crucial to tackling our most pressing challenges, including human cognitive bias, media spin, the “post-truth” problem, persuasion, the role of words in our thinking, and much more.”

Nick Enfield is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sydney and director of the Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre, and the Sydney Centre for Language Research. He is head of a Research Excellence Initiative on The Crisis of Post-Truth Discourse. His research on language, culture, cognition and social life is based on long term field work in mainland Southeast Asia, especially Laos. His recent books include Natural Causes of Language, Distributed Agency, and How We Talk. Nick has published widely in linguistics, anthropology, and cognitive science venues, and has written for the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement, the Wall Street Journal, and Science. He is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, the Royal Society of New South Wales, and the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

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Welcome to episode 344 of the show with Professor Justin E. H. Smith, author of The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is, joining us on the program to discuss topics from his book. “An original deep history of the internet that tells the story of the centuries-old utopian dreams behind it—and explains why they have died today. Many think of the internet as an unprecedented and overwhelmingly positive achievement of modern human technology.”

Justin Erik Halldór Smith is an American-Canadian professor of history and philosophy of science at the University of Paris 7 – Denis Diderot. He has authored several books and is also a sometime contributor to The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, n+1, Slate, and Art in America. Smith is an editor-at-large of Cabinet Magazine. Since the fall of 2020, Smith has been publishing philosophical and critical essays on his Substack newsletter, Justin E. H. Smith’s Hinternet.

Smith’s primary research interests include Leibniz, early modern philosophy, history and philosophy of biology, classical Indian philosophy, and the history and philosophy of anthropology.

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Cities represent a place where wildlife once chose to be, and where we have come together with wildlife in the current moment. With wildlife thriving in cities, we have the opportunity to create vibrant urban ecosystems that serve both people and animals. The Accidental Ecosystem tells the story of how cities across the United States went from having little wildlife to filling, dramatically and unexpectedly, with wild creatures. Author and Professor Peter S. Alagona joins on episode 343 to cover topics from this recent book.

After earning his PhD at UCLA in 2006, Professor Alagona completed postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard and Stanford universities. Since arriving at UCSB in 2009, he has received several awards, including a National Science Foundation CAREER grant and the Harold J. Plous Award for the UCSB College of Letters and Science’s most outstanding junior faculty member. Alagona is the author of more than three-dozen publications in the areas of environmental history, geography, philosophy, and policy—including After the Grizzly: Endangered Species and the Politics of Place in California.

Peter Alagona’s research focuses on the histories of land use, natural resource management, environmental politics, and ecological science in the North American West and beyond. He has particular interests in endangered species and biological diversity, and he is developing a new research and teaching initiative on the history of ideas about environmental change.

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Are you able to do one thing at a time with full presence or concentration? What are categories of life that we can look at to bring this full presence to? Self-improvement author and bibliophile Thatcher Wine joins us on episode 342 of the show to detail twelve such examples from his book The Twelve Monotasks: Do One Thing At A Time.

Thatcher Wine is a Self-improvement author, professional book curator, bibliophile, and founder of Juniper Books. He is mostly known for designing and creating visually appealing custom curated book libraries. The Guardian and Town & Country have referred Wine as a “celebrity bibliophile”. Wine co-authored his first book Love of Books: Designing and Curating a Home Library in 2019. The book is about curating and designing private libraries.

Links: Personal Website | Instagram | Twitter | Juniper Books

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When it comes to what we can learn about our senses from animals of the world, a lot is illuminated by Jackie Higgins, author of Sentient: How Animals Illuminate the Wonder of Our Human Senses. She joins on episode 341, with an array of organisms to present, along with the senses that those organisms inform us about.

“From the harlequin mantis shrimp with its ability to see a vast range of colors, to the bloodhound and its hundreds of millions of scent receptors; from the orb-weaving spider whose eyes recognize not only space but time, to the cheetah whose ears are responsible for its perfect agility, these astonishing animals hold the key to better understanding how we make sense of the world around us.”

Jackie Higgins is a graduate of Oxford University with an MA in zoology and has worked for Oxford Scientific Films for over a decade, along with National Geographic, PBS Nova, and the Discovery Channel. She has also written, directed, and produced films at the BBC Science Department. She lives in London.

Links: Sentient on Amazon | Twitter | Simon & Schuster

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Following the great success of her first novel Le Tiers Temps, French novelist and producer Maylis Besserie has continued forward with her latest novel Les amours dispersées. She joins us from France on episode 340 of the show to discuss her novels, writing, themes from the content, and shares with us some of the elements of writing freedom that exist.

Maylis works as a producer for the radio channel France Culture, and her novel Le Tiers Temps won the Goncourt for first novels. It serves as an homage to Samuel Beckett and James Joyce, and was named after the retirement home where Beckett lived in the last year of his life.

Links: Twitter | Wikipedia | Books on Amazon

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Ethical questions can come up in many facets of our life. What we do in a scenario says a lot about what we value, how we think about others, and I would add that it relates to our long-term well-being. On episode 339, returning guest Dr. Susan Liautaud brings her years of experience in the ethical domain to discuss with me regarding a variety of thought-provoking ethical questions presented in her new book The Little Book of Big Ethical Questions.

The book is divided into sections of ethics that one can focus on, from family and friends to technology or consumer choices. Each section has questions that come up in these categories, and the ethical items one would need to decide through in such scenarios. As I was reading, it was clear that these ethical questions and how we personally answer them relates to how we will feel about ourself years or decades from now.

Dr. Susan Liautaud is the founder and managing director of Susan Liautaud & Associates Limited, which advises clients from global corporations to NGOs on complex ethics matters. Author of The Power of Ethics and The Little Book of Big Ethical Questions, she also teaches cutting-edge ethics courses at Stanford University and serves as chair of Council of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Liautaud is the founder of the nonprofit platform The Ethics Incubator and chairs a number of global nonprofit boards. She divides her time between Palo Alto, California, and London.

It is a delight to have had Susan back on the show for her third appearance. You can check out her past episode as part of my panel on multiple topics including ethics, or our original episode on her prior book The Power of Ethics. The following are links to her content online:

The Little Book of Big Ethical Questions | SusanLiautaud.com | Stanford Page

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