Is This The Most Absurd Time In History? - Rudyard Lynch - #832

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Rudyard Lynch. He's a YouTuber and a historian. Is the modern world weird? Whether it's incels, brat summer, a broken media landscape, godlessness, or a decline in institutional trust, it seems like lots of modernity is kind of odd. From the fall of empires to the rise of new world orders, how does our current timeline compare with the rest of recent history? Expect to learn whether we are actually living in a unique time, what a far right backlash might look like, why the left is seen as more feminine, what would have happened if Trump had actually been killed, what it will take for young men to feel happy and fulfilled again, and much more. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify, which is why they are the global force behind Gymshark, Skims, Allo and Neutonic. When it comes to converting browsers into buyers, they are best in class. Their checkout is 36% better on average compared to other leading e-commerce platforms, and their shop pay means that you can boost conversions by up to 50%. Best of all, their award-winning support is there to help you every step of the way. Look, you're not going into business to learn about how to code or build a website or do backend inventory management. Shopify takes all of that off your hands and allows you to focus on the job that you came here to do, which is designing and selling an awesome product. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout that we use at Neutonic with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/modernwisdom or lowercase. That's shopify.com/modernwisdom to upgrade your selling today. This episode is brought to you by Whoop. Whoop is a 24-7 health and fitness coach that tracks your sleep, strain, recovery, stress, and more to provide personalized insights to help you to reach your goals. Whether you're obsessed with putting in a little more effort in the gym or getting those extra hours of sleep, Whoop helps you improve your everyday health and wellness. Each morning, Whoop gives you a recovery score that acts as your daily guide for how much you should exert yourself. At the end of the day, you'll get a recommendation for your ideal bedtime and wake time. You can also track over 140 different habits and behaviors to see how they impact your overall health. You can stop guessing about what's happening inside of your body by wearing a small thing on your wrist that tracks absolutely everything. Also, you can join for free, pay nothing for the brand new Whoop 4 strap. Plus, you get your first month for free and there's a 30 day money back guarantee. So you can buy it for free, try it for free. And if you do not like it after 29 days, they will give you your money back. Head to join.whoop.com/modernwisdom. That's join.whoop.com/modernwisdom. This episode is brought to you by Element. Stop having coffee first thing in the morning. I think your adenosine system that caffeine acts on isn't even active for the first 90 minutes of the day, but your adrenal system is and salt acts on your adrenal system. Element contains a science-backed electrolyte ratio of sodium, potassium and magnesium with no junk, no sugar, no coloring, artificial ingredients, gluten fillers or any other BS. It plays a critical role in reducing muscle cramps and fatigue whilst optimizing brain health, regulating appetite and curbing cravings. It's how I've started my morning every single day for over three years now. And I absolutely love it. The orange flavor in a cold glass of water, first thing in the morning is fantastic. It is the best way to start the day. Also they have a no BS, no questions, ask refund policy. So if you do not like it for any reason, they will give you your money back and you don't even need to return the box. That's how confident they are that you love it. Head to drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom to get a free sample pack of all eight flavors with your first box. That's drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom.
But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Rudyard Lynch.
As a guy who has spent a lot of time studying history, how unusual do you think that the time we're living in right now is?

**Rudyard Lynch** (4:21)
We are the most absurd era in history by a very significant margin. And I can get into why I think that's true. I think there's only one under, there's one easy underlying variable that explains all of it. But I invented an acronym called SAW, and SAW is Studies in Ancient Wisdom. And what that means to convey is that there's an underlying shared truth that all the world religions share, all the world's folkways going back thousands of years. And then this is corroborated by modern evidence. And I think this podcast is a great example. You might be like one of the biggest SAW content creators, where what you do is you compare ancient teachings with what modern science says. And so there is a strong tether between the two. And the 20th century is just a bizarre century. And that's true for about a dozen different reasons. The 20th century established different intellectual precedents as it related to mating, as it related to the idea of community, the nation, religion, how economic conditions worked. And so you could kind of call the blue pill era of history from roughly the World Wars until COVID or now. And it's really the century of social engineering. So our era of history is incredibly bizarre. And the irony is that we judge everyone else according to our standard, but our standard is incredibly strange. And so I like to say that a fish in a pond cannot know its place in the world because it only knows the water. And we are that fish. And the reason we don't study history is because if we started looking for what it taught us, we'd realize we're doing something very, very wrong.