• 330 - A More Beautiful Question - Warren Berger (rebroadcast)
    Jan 5 2026

    Warren Berger has made a career out of classifying, categorizing, and making sense of the many varieties of questions that we ask and in this episode he explains how we can ask more beautiful questions that can lead to all manner of better outcomes.

    Warren Berger's Website

    Warren Berger's Twitter

    A More Beautiful Question

    Carl Sagan on Asking Questions

    Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains Why The Sky Is Blue

    The Real Reason the Sky is Blue

    How Does Rayleigh Scattering ACTUALLY Work? (The Blue Sky)

    Kitted

    How Minds Change

    David McRaney’s Twitter

    YANSS Twitter

    Show Notes

    Newsletter

    Patreon


    Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • 329 - Point Taken - Steven Franconeri
    Dec 22 2025

    Dr. Steven Franconeri explains the powerful insights and opportunities offered by a game he and his team created for having better disagreements about just about anything, but especially about the sort of topics that often lead to arguments, fights, and terrible holiday dinners.

    Kitted Executive Academy

    Point Taken

    The Visual Thinking Lab

    Steven Franconeri

    How Minds Change

    David McRaney’s Twitter

    David McRaney’s BlueSky

    YANSS Twitter

    Show Notes

    Newsletter

    Patreon


    Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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    52 mins
  • 328 - Shape - Jordan Ellenberg (rebroadcast)
    Dec 8 2025

    We sit down with Jordan Ellenberg, a world-class geometer, who takes us on a far-ranging exploration of the power of geometry, which turns out to help us think better about practically everything

    His writing has appeared in Slate, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe, and he is the New York Times bestselling author of How Not to Be Wrong – but in this episode we will discuss his new book, Shape: The hidden geometry of information, biology, strategy, democracy and everything else.

    Kitted Executive Academy

    Jordan Ellenberg’s Website

    Jordan Ellenberg’s Academic Website

    Jordan Ellenberg’s Twitter

    Shape

    How Minds Change

    David McRaney’s Twitter

    David McRaney’s BlueSky

    YANSS Twitter

    Show Notes

    Newsletter

    Patreon


    Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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    1 hr and 11 mins
  • 327 - The Trolley Solution - Joshua Greene
    Nov 24 2025

    Philosopher, neuroscientist, and psychologist, Joshua Greene tells us how the brain generates morality and how his research may have solved the infamous trolley problem, and in so doing created a way to encourage people to contribute to charities that do the most good, and, in addition, play quiz games that can reduce polarization and possibly save democracy.

    Kitted Executive Academy

    Pods Fight Poverty

    Give Directly

    Giving Multiplier

    Joshua Greene's Website

    Moral Tribes

    The Trolley Problem in Real Life

    A Buddhist Monk Faces The Trolley Problem

    Alief vs Belief

    Tango

    Tango Quiz Game Research

    Charitable Giving Research

    How Minds Change

    David McRaney’s Twitter

    David McRaney’s BlueSky

    YANSS Twitter

    Show Notes

    Newsletter

    Patreon


    Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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    1 hr and 19 mins
  • 326 - The Origin of Language - Madeleine Beekman
    Nov 10 2025

    We sit down with Dr. Madeleine Beekman, a professor emerita of evolutionary biology and behavioral ecology at the University of Sydney, Australia, whose new book, The Origin of Language, presents a completely new and fascinating theory for how language emerged in homo sapiens, in human beings, in you and me and the rest of us.

    Madeleine Beekman

    How Minds Change

    David McRaney’s Twitter

    YANSS Twitter

    Show Notes

    Newsletter

    Patreon


    Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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    46 mins
  • 325 - Cognitive Dissonance - Part Two (rebroadcast)
    Oct 27 2025

    In this episode we welcome Dr. Sarah Stein Lubrano, a political scientist who studies how cognitive dissonance affects all sorts of political behavior. She’s also the co-host of a podcast about activism called "What Do We Want?" and she wrote a book titled Don’t Talk About Politics which is about how to discuss politics without necessarily talking about politics.

    Sarah Stein Lubrano's Website

    Sarah Stein Lubrano's Substack

    Sarah Stein Lubrano's Twitter

    Kitted

    How Minds Change

    David McRaney’s Twitter

    YANSS Twitter

    Show Notes

    Newsletter

    Patreon


    Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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    58 mins
  • 324 - Cognitive Dissonance - Part One (rebroadcast)
    Oct 13 2025

    In this episode, the story of a doomsday cult who predicted the exact date and circumstances of the end of the world, and what happened when that date passed and the world did not end.

    Also, we explore our drive to remain consistent via our desire to reduce cognitive dissonance. When you notice you’ve done something you believe is wrong, then you will either stop doing that thing or stop believing it is wrong. And if you believe something is true but you come across some information that disconfirms that belief, you’ll either change your belief, challenge the validity of the challenging information, or go looking for confirmation you were right all along.

    Previous Episodes

    Kitted Shop

    The Story of Kitted

    How Minds Change

    David McRaney’s BlueSky

    David McRaney’s Twitter

    YANSS Twitter

    YANSS Facebook

    Show Notes

    Newsletter

    Patreon


    Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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    58 mins
  • 323 - Job Therapy - Tessa West (rebroadcast)
    Sep 29 2025

    Are you unhappy at your job? Are you starting to consider a change of career because of how your current work makes you feel? Do you know why?

    According to our guest in this episode, Dr. Tessa West, a psychologist at NYU, if you are currently contemplating whether you want to do the work that you do everyday you should know that although this feeling is common, psychologists who study this sort of thing have discovered that our narratives for why we feel this way are often just rationalizations and justifications.

    In fact, it turns out that the way we psychologically evaluate the jobs we think we might not want to do anymore is nearly identical to how we evaluate romantic relationships we feel like we might no longer want to be a part of. The feelings are usually undeniable, but our explanations for why we feel the way we feel can be wildly inaccurate, and because of that, our resulting behavior can be, let’s say, sub-optimal. We sometimes stay far longer than we should or make knee-jerk decisions we later regret or commit to terrible mistakes that could have been avoided.

    Job Therapy

    Tessa West's Website

    Tessa West's Twitter

    How Minds Change

    David McRaney’s Twitter

    YANSS Twitter

    Kitted Shop


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    55 mins