Keep Talking Dan Riley

D.J. Taylor is a novelist, a literary critic, and the author of two biographies of George Orwell: Orwell: The Life, and Orwell: The New Life. During our conversation, D.J. talks about Orwell's life, why Orwell's books, particularly his two on totalitarianism, Animal Farm and 1984, have endured so many years after his death, and the relevance of his ideas and insights to modern times.
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00:00 Intro
00:49 Who was George Orwell?
03:03 Why is Orwell so intriguing to D.J. Taylor?
05:01 Orwell's relevance over the past 20 years
08:21 How did Orwell capture totalitarianism so clearly?
13:30 The totalitarian impulse in Orwell
18:06 Orwell's commitment to his beliefs
21:59 A power of facing unpleasant facts
26:47 The void filled by the decline of religion
30:15 What was Orwell for?
34:58 Orwell's final years on Jura
38:48 Criticisms of Orwell
45:19 How would Orwell view modern times?
52:07 Euphemism and Newspeak today
54:43 Famous quotes from Orwell
55:45 Why does Orwell endure?

Camilla Kring is an author, a global speaker, and is the founder of B-Society, an organization fighting for "chronotype equality." During our conversation, Camilla talks about night owls and morning birds, why humans have a wide spectrum of sleep cycles, our cultural bias towards early birds, the damage done to night owls who are asked to fit into a morning bird society, and how we might be able to provide greater time autonomy to people to live in accordance with their own rhythms.
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Camilla's org, B-Society
Keep Talking Substack
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00:00 Intro
00:41 An "A person" vs "B person"
02:42 Social jet lag of night owls
04:17 Evolutionary reasons for night owls
11:17 How society became biased against night owls
15:32 Are night owls lazy?
21:02 The range of preferred sleeping cycles in humans
26:29 The guilt of and bias against night owls
32:14 Advice for night owls who can't control their schedule
36:12 How AM sunlight and light exposure helps people
37:22 The importance of sleep
43:18 Chronotypes and a quote from "Why We Sleep"
48:46 Can night owls turn into morning birds?
54:32 Is our society chronically sleep-deprived?
58:25 How does a sane society approach sleep?

Sarah Everts is a science journalist, an associate professor at Carleton University, and the author of "The Joy of Sweat: The Strange Science of Perspiration." During our conversation, Sarah talks about how sweating was an evolutionary superpower for humans, what sweat is, why some people sweat more than others, the history of the antiperspirant industry, and why we receive such psychological benefits from sauna exposure and exercise-induced sweating.
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Keep Talking Substack
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00:00 Intro
00:50 Sarah's interest in sweat
02:20 Sweating as an evolutionary advantage
13:08 Why do some people sweat more than others?
19:29 Is being able to easily sweat a sign of health?
24:30 Ethnic differences in sweating
29:05 How advertising created the antiperspirant industry
39:35 The benefits of heat and sweating
51:45 Forcing your heart to exercise

Sherry Ning is an author and an essayist, whose Substack, "Pluripotent," has some of the best writing I've come across on human nature, purpose, and how to live. During our conversation, Shelly talks about creating one's own path, success, open-mindedness, beauty, nostalgia, spirituality, and religion.
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00:00 Intro
00:36 A purpose to write
2:37 Trait openness
6:12 Real diversity is found in human personality
8:37 Fame 10:29 WEIRD people
12:45 For happiness, ask: what will make me miserable?
15:47 Success and going your own way
26:36 Open-mindedness and particularity of taste
34:06 Wildflowers: beauty and toughness
39:52 The death of Sherry's father
43:27 Nostalgia and good times
49:49 What modern writer does Sherry enjoy?
52:26 Sherry's religious and spiritual beliefs

Stuart Whatley is a writer, a Senior Editor at Project Syndicate, and the author of "Toward a Leisure Ethic," my favorite essay that I've read of the past few months. During our conversation, Stuart talks about the historic purpose of leisure and work, our culture's obsession with busyness and praise of toil, and the reason for striving towards a life of a leisure ethic: where one has control of one's time, one's energy, and where one works on projects for their own sake.
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Support via Venmo
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Rate on Spotify
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00:00 Intro
01:01 What has been a "leisure ethic" in history?
04:05 Isn't extolling leisure a call for laziness?
10:04 The role of work and leisure in history
15:44 The shame of having an anti-work mentality
20:44 A quote from "Toward a Leisure Ethic"
27:02 A response to people who disagree with Stuart
32:11 "Enough" and how to live a life well-lived
40:19 How much we worked as hunter-gatherers
43:36 We lack models for a "leisure ethic"
48:24 Workaholism in America
51:44 Derek Sivers, money hoarders, and insatiable desires
55:14 A story from "The Psychology of Money" and how to use money

Matt Johnson is the Susan Hill Ward Professor of Psychedelics and Consciousness and a professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. As stated on the Hopkins' website, Matt "is one of the world’s most published scientists on the human effects of psychedelics, and has conducted seminal research in the behavioral economics of drug use, addiction, and risk behavior."
During our conversation, Matt talks about the resistance and skepticism he faced in attempting to study psychedelics for therapeutic purposes, herd mentality within academia, and the effectiveness of psychedelics in mitigating human suffering, specifically in cancer patient's end-of-life anxiety, treatment-resistant depression, nicotine addiction, and alcohol addiction. He also talks about the state of mental healthcare in America and the life and work of one of his colleagues, the late Roland Griffins.
Matt has been a pioneer in the psychedelic renaissance, and I believe that his commitment to independent-thinking and freedom of thought, determination in the face of skepticism, and openness to being wrong can be a model for any ambitious person attempting to do original, important, and potentially world-changing work and research.