31: Ryan Holiday - Conspiracy, Manipulation & other Pastimes
Description
Ryan Holiday is a master manipulator with a cool head, and keen eye for social observation and a big heart. Eric sits down with the Author of "Conspiracy" and tries to get a self-confessed former manipulator and one of the top emerging millennial social analysts to tell us how he unweaves society's artifices to see what is really driving our current moment across many areas.
Ryan is a unique voice who uses stoicism to remain intellectually detached but without seemingly succuming to emotional or moral disinterest in the issues of our day. With a background in marketing and media. he has gone beyond mere vice signaling to try to help people see how open they are to having their own media and digital habits weaponized against them. In some ways, one could say that he has migrated from grey-hat mind hacker to a white hat analyst and conversationalist helping us to better understand ourselves using ancient wisdom in a modern moment.
This interview was recorded slightly before the quarantining and so is interesting to think of in light of what is about to happen.
Thank You to Our Sponsors:
Four Sigmatic: foursigmatic.com/portal
Personna: Amazing.com/personna and use the code RAZORS25
Blinkist: Blinkist.com/portal
Theragun: theragun.com/portal
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
"The Walrus And The Carpenter" by Lewis Caroll
starts at 17:28
sometimes the best minds do go back home to small towns to work. they love their family, their friends, and their neighborhoods and want to improve them. Holiday lets his elitist west coast raised in Sacramento ego blind him to the possibility that many times the best of us are not chasing money or elitist careers. this lapse in Holiday's understanding shows the cracks in his character and inability to see the entire equation of life. sometimes the financial advisor in Toledo does know more than the elitist coastal idiots that bring us Goldman Sachs or the housing bubble or 22 trillion in debt.
This is probably the best episode I've heard so far.
"... Yeah, and one of the Stoic ideas is, sort of, be strict with yourself and tolerant of others..." - Ryan Holiday 1:49:30 on how to address one's own hypocrisy.