Peter Whybrow: “When More is Not Enough”

Episode 26
July 6, 2022

(Conversation Recorded on May 25, 2022)

On this episode we meet with psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and author Peter Whybrow.

Whybrow gives us an overview of why humans tend to consume excessively in resource-abundant societies. Why is it difficult for humans to change our ways?

Additionally, Whybrow  shares pathways for humans to move toward having a well-tuned brain.

About Peter Whybrow

Peter C. Whybrow, M.D. is Director Emeritus of the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles, the Judson Braun Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, and author of The Well-Tuned Brain: Neuroscience and the Life Well-Lived.

Show Notes

PDF Transcript

00:42 - Peter’s works + info

03:15 - A Mood Apart

03:34 - The Dot-Com Bubble

03:50 - Dopamine

04:04 - American Mania: When More is Not Enough

04:27 - The Well Tuned Brain

08:11 - 1800s Irish migration 

08:58 - Migrant gene DRD4-7R* Allele and correlation with the pursuit of novelty

10:31 - Dennis Meadows and TGS Episode

11:32 - Reflective vs reflexive thought

14:12 - Evolutionary Psychology

14:44 - Discount rate

15:05 - Evolutionary creation of the parts of the brain

16:15 - Adam Smith - The Wealth of Nations

16:25 - Humans are social creatures

17:30 - Feedback loops

18:07 - Adam Smith - The Theory of Moral Sentiments

20:19 - Loss aversion

21:27 - We are just as smart now as we were in the ice age

22:23 - People are addicted to “more”

22:45 - We are polluting the planet

23:45 - The neurology of chemical addiction can also apply to things like gambling and shopping

24:40 - The proximate vs the ultimate

25:32 - We have no social constraints anymore

28:19 - We try to compete for status with our peers

30:15 - Why it’s so difficult for us to constrain ourselves

31:15 - The importance of trust and empathy for human societies and self-constraint

33:25 - The importance of oil to plastic

34:11 - Rats and cocaine experiment

35:41 - The problem with infinite economic growth

36:10 - Waste from electric cars

37:35 - Evolutionary benefits of habits

38:10 - The mechanism of habits can be used to create addiction/bad habits

39:38 - Issues with current U.S. education system

42:09 - The frontal lobes and decision making

42:28 - Perception-action cycle

48:17 - John Gowdy TGS Episode

51:01 - Teaching social behavior in schools

52:13 - Finland education system + Book recommended by Peter Whybrow

54:40 - The US wealth gap - 50% of the population makes less than a living wage

56:05 - How much of our consumption stems from comparison to others?

57:28 - Analysis of the slums in post-world war London

1:04:20 - Social media can’t substitute for face-to-face interactions

1:06:54 - Humans shape each other’s behaviors

1:10:01 - The US is one of the only democratic countries in the world with just two parties


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Joe Tainter: “Surplus, Complexity, and Simplification”

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Gerardo Ceballos: “Will the Ongoing Population Extinctions Lead to a 6th Mass Extinction?”