Psychology, Aliens & Averting The Apocalypse - Robert Wright - #338

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
What's happening, people, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Robert Wright. He's the president of the Nonzero Foundation, an author and visiting professor of science and religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Bob's book, The Moral Animal, has changed my thinking more than pretty much any other over the last few years. So naturally, I wanted to bring him on to discuss whether aliens are real and how we can avoid existential risks. For real though, expect to learn the role that evolutionary psychology plays in mindfulness practice, why Bob thinks that aliens are probably enlightened, how global coordination can be improved by everyone meditating, whether we're doomed for civilizational collapse and much more. Bob's been talking to some of the intellectual powerhouses from the last few decades since he's been on the internet and he's got a wealth of experience. If you're not familiar with him, then I highly recommend that you check out The Moral Animal. It really is a barn burner of a book and it will make you view the world in a very different sort of way. But today was just a bro chat amongst bros, broing it out, just doing what bros do. So yeah, enjoy this one. In Apple podcasts related catastrophic news, they have managed to set anyone who already subscribes to Modern Wisdom to automatically have episodes set oldest to newest rather than newest to oldest. So if this is you or this might have happened on a different show as well, open up the Modern Wisdom show page in your Apple podcasts app. There's three dots in the top right hand corner. Press that, press settings and then go newest to oldest rather than oldest to newest because for no reason on earth would anyone choose to listen to an episode from three and a half years ago just on a whim. Apple podcasts, they're making my life increasingly difficult on a weekly basis. But yes, that is how you fix it if you want to do it. And if you haven't found out that you've hit subscribe, there's a plus button just at the top there. Go and give that little tap for me. I thank you. But now it's time to talk aliens with Robert Wright. Bob Wright, welcome to the show.

**Robert Wright** (2:24)
Well, thanks for having me.

**Chris Williamson** (2:25)
My pleasure. How do you go from working on evolutionary psychology to mindfulness, to politics and the end of the world?

**Robert Wright** (2:36)
I don't know, they seem closely interconnected in my mind, at least. Well, as for evolutionary psychology and mindfulness, that's actually kind of straightforward, I think. I mean, you know, I, my view of Buddhism, or at least of kind of Buddhist meditative practice and kind of the Buddhist prescription for dealing with the human predicament, is that it's actually a pretty smart response to the problem posed by human nature, to the way we naturally view things, process information, feel things. And human nature is a product of evolution. I mean, evolutionary psychology is about human nature. So, you know, for example, mindfulness can deal with anxiety. And so the question arises is, why is there anxiety to begin with? And the answer seems to be we're engineered by natural selection to feel it under certain circumstances. But that doesn't mean that it's always good for us. And mindfulness gives us a way of dealing with anxiety. And a number of other kind of problems with being human. The end of the world stuff. I mean, you're right. Like my latest obsession is this thing I call the Apocalypse Aversion Project.
That's long been a concern of mine. It's certainly related to human nature in the sense that I think our evolved psychology is in some ways an obstacle to forming the kind of global community. I think we need to form to solve the world's problems before they get out of hand. And I'm specifically thinking of what is sometimes called the psychology of tribalism. That is those parts of our evolved psychology that can lead us into pointless and counterproductive arguments and hostilities.
The psychology tends to involve cognitive biases and you might say a kind of warped perception of the world. And so, you know, if that indeed, if this psychology is one thing standing in the way of solving the world's problems, then you can see how mindfulness comes back into the picture. It might help us get our minds in a position where we're better equipped to help the civilization survive.

**Chris Williamson** (5:08)
So, avoiding the apocalypse, is that a global coordination problem? Is that an individual responsibility?

**Robert Wright** (5:16)
I would say it's both. I mean, you know, the...