Why Can No One Think Rationally Anymore? - George Mack - #721

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. My guest today is George Mack. He's a writer, marketer and an entrepreneur. Thinking for yourself is one of the most important skills you can develop. However, it's hard. It's a difficult task to overcome the boring, negative, irrational trends around you, which is why you need some new tools in your mental models box. Expect to learn what the Keynesian beauty contest is, why memes are so influential in society today, which behaviors appear positive but actually harm you in disguise, what the forgetting paradox is, what the most useful emotional state is, why ignorance is bliss is a put down in 2023, and much more. George has been coming on the show for five years now, and every single time that I get to speak to him, I love it. He has one of the best insights into human nature and social trends and why we are the way we are.
I just love it. This is what we talk about over dinner or coffee, and it's exactly the same conversation now, just minus the coffee and the dinner. And one week today, it's Christmas. It's going to be Christmas day, and there will be no episode on Christmas day. Time to put your phone down and spend it with the people that you enjoy that are around you. But we've got a Christmas special coming out. We've got a Lessons from 2023 episode this Thursday, which is so good and was one of the biggest, most played episodes of last year. So you don't want to miss that. And then in between Christmas and New Year, we've got some more special stuff too. So I hope that you are winding down appropriately ready for the New Year. Also, if you need a annual review, you can get that right now for free by going to chriswillex.com/review. It's an annual review template that I've used every single year to recap the lessons from the last 12 months and plan the year ahead. You can get that right now for free at chriswillex.com/review.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:51)
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**Chris Williamson** (2:20)
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