How I Write, Lecture on Tap, Laughing Gas
How I Write, Lecture on Tap, Laughing Gas
You can now watch or listen to my conversation with David Perell on the “How I Write Podcast,” which has become one of my favorite podcasts.
I compressed everything I learned about memoir writing throughout the past five years in this 90 minute discussion.
Links for Spotify and Apple Podcast.
We covered a lot of ground:
storytelling
emotional resonance and reversals
pacing
dialogue
connecting with readers
writing from your scars versus writing from your wounds
the voice of innocence versus the voice of experience in creative nonfiction
how to end a memoir
much more
New York City Event
You are invited to attend my Lectures on Tap event in NYC on September 6 at 6:30pm. I’ll deliver a lecture about the psychology of dominance, prestige, and power. If you’ve ever wanted to knock back a cocktail and watch me speak about evolutionary psychology, this is your chance. Tickets and info here.
From the archives
Swiping and Dating Preferences: Gender divides in sex and relationships
Links and recommendations
What Don’t We Know? by Joshua Rothman
How Laughing Gas Changed The World by Mark Miodownik
Matt Yglesias Considered As The Nietzschean Superman by Scott Alexander
The social construction of bespoke realities by Dan Williams
What Ever Happened to Dating? The Rise of ‘Just Talking’ Relationships by D. Scott Sibley
Academic freedom under threat at Cambridge: My friend Nathan Cofnas, a research fellow at the University of Cambridge, was recently kicked out of his college. Several prominent academics have publicly supported Nathan’s right to academic freedom, including Steven Pinker and Peter Singer. Nathan is suing the college—you can support him here
Follow me on Instagram here. The platform is less volatile and more chill than Twitter/X, so I post some spicier excerpts from my readings on my IG stories
You can follow me on TikTok here
Three interesting findings
38% of Brown students, 35% of Princeton students, 29% of Yale and Harvard students, and 21% of Cornell students identify as LGBT+ (source). Sad that these figures are so low. Obviously many members of our future ruling class are still in the closet.
For face recognition memory tasks, women with IQs in the 60-80 range outperform men with IQs in the 121-140 range. When it comes to memorizing people's faces, women are, on average, far superior to men. (source).
A chimpanzee testicle and brain (source):
Shocking to see that ~0 of the increase in Ivy League LGBTQ identity is in "gay" and ~all of the increase is in "queer", "questioning", "ace", and "bi" (i.e., the identities that allow someone to feel unique/oppressed but still date the opposite sex). Who would have guessed? /s
I will definitely go back and watch the interview, but for now I got sidetracked on: Matt Yglesias Considered As The Nietzschean Superman by Scott Alexander
Thanks so much for this pointer! The title was so hilarious that I started reading it out of curiosity. Then I was hooked and read all the way to end. Perhaps not coincidentally, your substack and Mr. Yglesias' were two of the first I subscribed to.